He winks at me.
Fucking winks!
I could call Brooklyn. She would take minimum wage.
I have other options. So why the hell can't I say no to him?
“Look, kid—”
The rest of my sentence is stolen by his smile. The genuine, sunshine one that doesn’t have me questioning ulterior motives. “Relax. It was a joke.” He stands again, putting some distance back between us. “I know you’re straight, and… not into that.”
Is he blushing?
“I’m indiscriminately not into anybody,” I clarify.
“Yeah, I kind of figured that yesterday when you unceremoniously rejected one of the hottest women I've ever seen in my life.”
“So why don’t you ask Brooklyn out?” I suggest as I pick up the timesheets and close my laptop.
“A person being attractive doesn’t make me automatically interested.”
“Same.” I shrug, unable to look at him. It’s not a lie, it’s just not the whole truth.
“But you’re not… celibate, or anything?”
“Far from it.”
As I walk to the back room, I look at Carey from the corner of my eye like a fucking narcissist. This time there's no mistaking the blush of his cheeks as he avoids my gaze and busies himself straightening the already straight tattoo tables.
I feel stupid for what I said, but I can’t take it back.
He talks like a girl—or a guy when they talk to a girl—so his questions constantly catch me off guard, and I find myself answering them half the time without even thinking.
I put my laptop in my bag to take home and return to the shop floor to find Carey with one foot up like a goddamn flamingo running a lint roller over his new slippers.
“So what’s your final decision?” I ask.
I watch as he looks down at the front of his shirt, runs the lint roller over some fluff, then walks to the reception desk to put it away. “I already gave you my final offer.”
“How about this? I’ll give you eighteen an hour, and if things go fine, in a month I’ll raise it to twenty-one?”
“No.” It’s short, and blunt, and he walks away from the desk.
“Excuse me?”
“You offered me twenty just before," he says, picking up the full trash can from my station. “Why the hell would I take less than that?”
“Fine. Twenty.”
“I already said no to that, as well.” He slides open the break room door with more force then needed just so he can make his point. He empties the trash can into the bin out the back, then returns it to its place by my stool. And only then, does he look at me again. “You told me I could leave. But is that really what you want?”
“You know you’re not the only person who wants this job.”
“So call her then.” He marches to the desk, picks up the phone, and holds it out to me. “Take it. Or do you want me to do it, cause you know I will.”
I lower his hand. “You need to compromise with me, Carey. And you need to do that knowing I wouldn’t give anyone else who walked through that door twenty-five an hour.”
“Not even if they have a diploma in admin?”
