I stepped into his crowded, musty office. He had cardboard cut outs and neon clocks and all sorts of promotional paraphernalia displayed from the liquor companies we worked with. All of those extra things added to my claustrophobia, a feeling I would’ve had even in a larger office, since Isaac was such a creep.
“Hey, Aubrey Longfellow,” he said with a leer, “Wanna see my long fellow?”
Exhibit K in my sexual harassment case, should I ever find the courage to file one. I stifled the urge to roll my eyes and instead forced my mouth into a small, toothless smile. “No thank you. Did you need anything?”
He chuckled.
Wrong question. When would I ever learn?
He gave me a specific list of things he “needed,” and it took every ounce of will power not to flinch. I kept my smile in place. “Do you need anything work-related?”
“You are no fun, Cupcake,” he said with a sigh. “But I do need you to call several beer distributors about the December shipments. Then I need you to download the pictures from the camera and craft them into a calendar we can use as a promotional Christmas gift. Think you can do that?”
“That I can,” I said. I was actually pretty good at editing images, if I did say so myself. I’d be sure to photoshop any part of my pictures that got too immodest, not that I intended to let Isaac know that.
He looked up from his phone. “Why are you still standing there?”
“Well, I was wondering if you’d heard anything about the promotion.”
He grimaced. “Not yet. It’s out of my hands and up to Michaels.”
Michaels was his boss and barely an improvement over Isaac. Luckily though, the promotion would at least move me to another warehouse. The commute would be longer, but it would be worth it to get away from Isaac.
“Better get to work on that calendar. Prove to me you’re not just a pretty face.”
Even though I should’ve known that he would say something like that, his tone still caught me off guard. It took me a second to gather myself enough to leave his office and get to work on the calendar.
That’s when things started to really go downhill.
2
Cole
It had been hours since I’d left the mall, but I couldn’t quit thinking about Aubrey Longfellow’s underwear. I knew they had candy canes on them because I’d seen them in the wash and could recognize the pattern, even from afar. Aubrey was the kind of person who never remembered to get her clothes out of the dryer. She was also the kind of person who would make sure her underwear matched her outfit.
And what an outfit it was. A red velvet dress, ridiculously short with white fur cuffs and white fur on end of the dress. She was wearing these black boots with a high heel, too. Think Mrs. Claus, but make her sexy.
You will not think impure thoughts about your best friend’s little sister.
Too late.
But, in my defense, Aubrey was gorgeous, and I’d been without a girlfriend for six months now. This meant I had been without sex for six months because work had kept me entirely too busy. Deidre hadn’t been the most effusive of partners, but she had been reliable. That’s why I’d proposed to her over the summer.
I had a whole plan. First, I moved into Zach’s grandmother’s house with plans to buy it eventually. Then, I would propose. Then we’d have an intimate Christmas wedding. By that time, Aubrey would’ve grown tired of being the third wheel, and I’d be able to talk her and her brother into selling to me. It was a magical house, an older bungalow with all of the modern renovations, and it was just a short walk from the Marietta Square in a good school district. It would be the perfect place for Deidre and me to raise our two kids—one boy and one girl—and then grow old together.
Just one hitch: Deidre had been shocked by my proposal. She’d thought our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. When I confessed that I’d even put out some feelers for a Christmas wedding, she broke the whole thing off with a dismissive, “Apparently, we want different things, Cole.”
But that was no reason to be thinking about Aubrey’s candy cane underwear. She’s my best friend’s little sister. There are rules about these things, and I, Cole Frost, am nothing if not a stickler for the rules.
“Yo, Frost, how’s the Angelo contract coming?” asked Delray Meeks, my boss.
I frowned. How much time had I been wasting thinking about this morning’s incident? “Not good. I still can’t figure out what problem he has with the contract.”
“Well, you’d better figure it out. Someone leaked our plans to the press, and all of the sports shows are talking about it like it’s a done deal.”
I groaned. The contract in question was for a reunion of the Atlanta Firebirds 2010 Championship basketball team. Well, the plan was to get the starting five players together at least. We had four signed to an appearance contract, but the fifth, Ezekiel Angelo, was a hold out. That would have been fine if no one knew what we were up to, but someone had blabbed.
In other words, someone hadn’t followed the rules.
