After Brandon was gone, Robbie shook his head in wonder. “So I work at a radio station where a BPS accountant gives tours. This is wild.”
“Radio. So wild,” Jake said flatly. “Okay, the tour leaves now.”
He guided Robbie through the various offices, warning him about the sacred pact of theOn Airsigns: no mortal soul dared enter the studio when they were lit. The last and most important stop was the kitchen.
“Pretty standard,” he told Robbie. “They tend to have fresh coffee going all day long since somebody’s always on the air and needing the caffeine.”
But the Brick’s newest employee wasn’t looking at him anymore; his eyes were fixed on the doorway. Somehow Jake knew who’d be there even before he turned around. Was it her perfume? Her shampoo? Her very essence, calling to something primal within him?
Fuck, he needed to get out of here. This was why he’d rented his own office.
He turned slowly, but Mabel’s eyes flicked right past him and settled on Robbie.
“Hi,” she purred. “Rumor has it you’re our new receptionist. I’m Mabel.”
She stepped into the room and extended her hand. The stab of hurt he felt at being so thoroughly dismissed vanished when Robbie’s brown eyes widened and he lurched forward and shook her hand mechanically, his enormous paw dwarfing hers. He nodded his head but didn’t return her greeting.
“Welcome aboard.” She eased her hand out of Robbie’s grip and looked at him expectantly, but the man seemed to have lost the power of speech.
The silence in the kitchen stretched interminably, and Jake was about to take over the conversation just to end the sheer awkwardness, even though Mabel was doing her best to pretend he wasn’t there, when the Brick’s newest employee suddenly found his tongue.
“I just want to say I’m your biggest fan,” he blurted, voice unnaturally loud. “I’ve been listening to you since I was in high school, ma’am.”
Mabel’s head snapped back, and her eyes narrowed fractionally. Jake watched in amazement as she stalked up to Robbie, who edged backward until he bumped against the fridge.
“Come again?” she asked, looking up, up, up into his face. She was tall; Robbie was so much taller.
Robbie had to clear his throat twice before he managed to squeak out, “I said—”
“Oh, I heard you.” She smiled wolfishly and planted a hand on her hip. “But ma’am is for grandmas and women who wear novelty holiday vests.” With her free hand, she gestured down at her short skirt and striped tank top. “Do I look like a grandma? Or a woman who wears novelty holiday vests?”
“No, ma— Uh, Mabel. You don’t.”
“Good. Good,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to lean as close to Robbie’s face as possible. “Then I’m going to make you a promise right now: if you ever call me ma’am again, I’m going to make you regret it. And you won’t like my techniques. Or maybe you will. Let’s hope you never find out.”
Robbie gave a small, strangled moan.
“Excellent!” The seductive menace in her tone vanished, replaced by her usual chipperness. “Welcome to the station!” Without a single glance at Jake, she spun on her heel and breezed out the door.
Neither man moved or spoke for a second.
“I don’t know whether I’m frightened or turned on,” Robbie whispered.
“You and me both.”
“I need a drink.” Robbie exhaled hard.
“You and me both.”
At the end of the workday, they jumped into Robbie’s car and headed to the diviest Beaucoeur bar Jake had ever seen, a subterranean retreat next to a comedy club and a sad-looking strip joint. He gingerly seated himself next to Robbie at the long sticky bar, terrified that he might have to learn the condition of the restrooms at some point. But he needed alcohol to wipe away the memory of Mabel’s husky, sexy threats. Bad enough to be in the room when she delivered them, but worse not to be their intended target. His body had lurched to life and begged for her to whisper vague promises of retribution into his ear.
Fuck, he was a mess. “What’s on tap?” he asked the grizzled bartender, who merely shrugged and poured him a glass of yellow-gold liquid. Jake accepted it with only mild alarm, and by the third drink, the tightness in his chest had eased.
“I mean, I knew she worked there and that at some point I’d meet her, but I didn’t expect her to be so beautiful, you know?” Robbie said.
“I know. She is,” Jake agreed, possibly a little too emphatically. He stared down into his beer, hiding the misery on his face while Robbie regaled his bar buddies with the tale of Jake swooping in to rescue him from his life of furniture drudgery. By the end of the story, the assembled men were hailing Jake as a hero and insisting on buying his drinks for the rest of the night.
Things were getting blurry around the edges when Robbie returned to singing Mabel’s praises, this time with the help of a few other patrons.
