“Shit,” I said, and immediately got on the ground to start picking up the pieces. Barry helped, too, crouching down andpopping a few of the floor M&M’s into his mouth while I dutifully avoided his gaze.
“Gross,” I muttered with a laugh.
“Don’t worry, I know the janitor. She’s good.”
I rolled my eyes but was begrudgingly charmed by his easy response and easier grin. It wasn’t even 6:00 in the morning and he was already on his charm A-game like this?
“Good morning, by the way,” he said.
“Yeah, morning.”
I didn’t try to explain the snooping in his locker, I had absolutely zero excuse. I hoped he would just pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Find what you were looking for?”
I looked up at his face then, crouched in front of me. He wore a big duffle across his chest, his hair looked like it was still wet from a shower. Under his jacket, today’s shirt was emerald green with “COLUMBUS” across the chest.
I pointed to it. “I think you were supposed to burn all the Columbus stuff when you got traded.”
“But green looks so nice on me.” He smirked. “How else could I get you to appreciate my hazel eyes?”
“I think they’re more brown than hazel.” I tossed my handful of M&M’s into the trash. “But I was looking in your locker only because I hoped you might have six bags of M&M’s I could take. Cravings, you know.”
Barry nodded, then looked down at me, so intense, boring into me basically, and I tried to look anywhere else. I wasn’t used to standing next to people as big as him. I may work in the practice facility most of the time, but I seldom actuallysawthe players. Sometimes when I was leaving they were coming in, and sometimes the nice ones said hi to me, but for the most part we were like ships in the night (or, well, morning).
“Do you have practice?” I asked.
“No,” Barry said. “Well, yeah, but nothing until eleven today.”
“Oh.” I left theso why are you here now?unspoken and stepped backward to increase the distance between us.
“I want to help.”
“With what?” I asked, because I thought “with the baby?” might be too presumptuous.
“You know, the cleaning.”
“The janitorial? In this building?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like to.”
“That’s not your job.” I didn’t understand his game here. Was he trying to get on my good side? For what purpose? I could recognize that I had been kind of a bitch to him since running into him yesterday, but I was just trying to protect myself from any funny business. And yes, avoiding difficult conversations.
I couldn’t decide if this was the funny business I’d been trying to avoid.
Barry just shrugged and crossed his massive arms in front of his massive chest. Again, I do not know why I thought he was just like a normal dude with a normal job when he looked like this.
“Okay,” I finally said. Barry looked ready to go, though also still like he just walked in. I cracked a smile. “Do you want to put your bag down?”
Barry looked at the bag like it had betrayed him by still being on before he dropped it and his jacket in his stall.
He slid the sleeves of his shirt up both arms and I don’t know why this made me stressed, seeing his forearms. I had at one time seen lots of his body, and I wasn’t freaking outthen. Or, I was, but in a fun and horny way.
I coughed and averted my focus to the task ahead of me: cleaning. I tossed him a microfiber cloth and a bottle of our multi-surface spray from the cart.
“What are we doing with these today?” he asked.
“Right.” I sprayed some of the blue liquid onto my cloth and ran it over the bench in front of the stall. “You do the benches and then the ledges sometimes get dusty, so do that too. Goahead and move the stuff there but try to put them back just how you found them so they don’t get mad at me.”
