Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (2 page)

“They want to know if I can go down
ten percent on price if they opt for the package,” the newcomer said in a
lackadaisical manner, powerful body strolling up with the graceful slide of a
fencer. “I was thinking that’s more than satisfactory. If so I can close it
today.”

“Sure, sure. Get it done.” John
waved his hand to shoo the man away.

“James, who is this?” the salesman
asked in a sophisticated, smooth voice.

She had a brief moment to wonder
about her excessive sweating problem in embarrassing situations as Mr.
Montgomery dryly said, “Hello, Sean. This is our newest employee: Krista
Marshall. Krista, meet Sean McAdams. Sean is a salesman here at the company.”

Sean’s intense gaze never left her.
“Hello.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Krista comes to us straight out of
college,” Mr. Montgomery continued in a bored voice. “She received top marks in
her class from a prestigious school in
Washington
.
You were what, top twenty, Krista?”

“Top five percent,” she replied
quietly, silently cursing him for embarrassing her. She was doing a good enough
job on her own.

“Yes, top five. A real dynamo!”

And that was before he said dynamo…

Sean smiled like a cat toying with
a brightly colored bug. “It’s a pleasure.”

He studied her for a moment longer
before nodding to John and turning away toward his office.

“Oh, and Krista…“ Sean’s gaze found
her again. “I believe you have something that belongs to me, but don’t worry
about it. I reprinted it. You can shred your copy, if you don’t mind.”

Krista, realizing what he was
talking about—what piece of paper she’d gotten off the printer that he was
talking about—stared dumbly. He smiled and resumed his powerful stride into his
office.

Oh yeah, people would notice that
weird factor. Great.

“Well, Krista, you let me know if
sales can do anything for you, okay?” John said earnestly, shaking her hand
again.

Mr. Montgomery sighed and started
walking away.

“Sur—“Krista cut off, watching her
boss plod down the hall. She looked back at John in despair. “Sorry, I gotta
go.”

“John likes everyone to go to him
for anything,” Mr. Montgomery said as soon as she had caught up. John was still
within hearing range. “But you try to get anything done, and he bars the way.”

All Krista could do was inwardly
groan.

When
5
o’clock
rolled around, Krista couldn’t sprint out of work fast
enough. She headed straight for happy hour with Kate and Jasmine, two friends
from college who moved to
San Francisco
shortly after graduation. Krista had never thought to move, letting them escape
to California unhindered, but when Jim had found her at a party, shortly after
serving him a restraining order, and punched her in the face, she decided
skipping town was the right, and only, way to play it.

Yes, he’d gone to jail—he took down
another three people who got in the way, all of whom had pressed charges—but
he’d get out eventually. Something as trivial as the law wouldn’t stop a man
like Jim. Not being able to see out of one eye for a week drove that point
home.

Krista spotted Kate in the corner
sipping her drink.

Twenty-six with long brown hair and
large, luminous eyes, Kate had a dainty look, but a contrasting foul mouth. She
was also pygmy short, which was funny when she started throwing out the
f-bombs. Her one, self-proclaimed, greatest flaw was always falling in love
with g*y men. In her defense, it was an easy thing to do, especially in
San
Francisco
. More than half the population of g*y men
had great style, excellent hygiene and unbelievable bodies, not to mention
being intelligent, educated and cultured.

Kate was in love a lot.

“Hey, Kate,” Krista said as she
flung her handbag into the corner of the booth and crawled in.

Kate jumped, and then giggled. “You
ass**le,” she said by way of hello.

“Did I grow, or is this pub
fashioned after people your size?” Krista asked as she tried to straighten her
legs under the table.

“Har har. How was your first day?”

“No, seriously. Is this not the
smallest booth in the world? Let’s go to the bar.”

About then Jasmine showed up,
looking like a painter. She was a tall girl and rail thin with a short bob and
a cloudy disposition, but always managed to make things fun regardless. Or
maybe she sought to up the fun factor since she thought everything was dismal.

Though all of them went to the same
college with the same major, each of them landed in different fields. Jasmine
was a designer of some sort and Kate ended up in product development. They all
had jobs, though, so they didn’t complain too loudly.

“Hi,” Jasmine said, sliding onto
her own bar-stool.

“So, Krista,” Kate said. “What
about these embarrassing stories from the day you text about earlier?”

“Ooh, I love embarrassing stories!”
Jasmine clapped happily, catching the eye of the older bartender and pointing
to the tap of Harp.

Krista couldn’t help a grin. “I
have a few. First off, my boss!”

Kate and Jasmine settled into their
barstools expectantly as Krista unfolded the strange events of her first day.
When she started talking about Mr. Montgomery and his various quirks,
humiliation turned into hilarity.

Finally Krista got to the most
embarrassing story.

“Wait,” Jasmine said as she bowed
her head with a thoughtful expression. “You picked up a piece of paper, which
you had heard print, in order to look normal? I don’t get it. Was he hideous or
something?”

“Or creepy?” Kate asked as she
leaned over her martini to get a good look at Krista’s face.

Krista cleared her throat and
shrugged. Kate and Jasmine immediately honed in.

“He was hot, wasn’t he?” Jasmine
accused with an evil smile.

Krista shrugged again, hating that
her friends could read her so well.

“He must have been super f**king
hot to make you lose your shit!” Kate chortled, matching Jasmine’s delight.

Krista kept the shrugs coming.

“Seriously? He was that hot?”
Jasmine asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Krista felt herself flush. “Okay,
yes. He was hot, okay? He just surprised me, is all. He was in my space—I
wasn’t all ga-ga over him, or anything! I know to steer clear of hot guys!”

“Womanizing guys,” Kate corrected.

“Same thing.” Jasmine waved the
thought away. “Describe him!”

“Seriously, you guys. There’s
nothing to describe. He was pleasant looking, he smelled good, and he surprised
me in an enclosed space. It’s not like I’m great with people. He could’ve been
anyone and I would’ve been a dweeb!”

“De-scr-ibe-him,” Jasmine
enunciated.

Krista rolled her eyes. “Fine. He
was over six feet—not much over, I don’t think. He had really green eyes—super
green. Hard to look away from eyes. Stop looking at me like that!” Kate held up
her hands as if to say there was no look. Krista continued with a red face. “He
had blondish hair in kind of a spikey ‘do. He had these, like, noble-born
features ….”

Jasmine shook her head to cut her
off. “What does that even mean? Who do you know that’s noble?”

“Just…I don’t know…like, straight
nose, chiseled jaw—like a guy a photographer would have a wet dream over.”

“Okay, so he was noble, fine.
Body?” Jasmine asked with hungry eyes.

“Jaz, whoa, get laid already,” Kate
said as she leaned away.

Jasmine huffed, “I need to. It’s
been a while. But I loves me a good hot man.”

“Nice body,” Krista continued,
thinking back. “Biceps, super broad shoulders—he was like, hulking in the
entryway. Trim waist.”

“Dress?”

“Suit,” Krista matched the girls’
smiles. She couldn’t help it. “Tailored, silk tie that matched his eyes…he
looked good in it. He wore it like a second skin. He like…lounged in it, or
something.” Krista shook her head, trying to calm the hatching butterflies in
her stomach.

Like any girl, Krista also loved to
look at hot guys, but this one had been different somehow. There was certain
quality to him that made her act like a teenager with a crush. It hadn’t
happened since she was a teenager with a crush.

“So…he was super-hot and you
freaked out,” Kate summed up.

“Well, it wasn’t just that his face
was perfect, you know? He was rugged and masculine, but so damn smooth he’d
melt in your mouth.” Krista fanned herself, finally giving in with a bright
smile, “He gives me fire-crotch just thinking about him.”

“Hah!” Jasmine pointed at her with
victory. “I knew it!”

“So hit that, Romeo,” Kate laughed.

“She’s a chick. She’d be Juliet,
dummy,” Jasmine said flippantly.

“Whatever. Same dumb play.”

“Yeah, right,” Krista mentally
shrank back from the suggestion. “New job. He’s the kind of guy that everyone
probably talks about.”

“Yeah, true. And if he doesn’t have
a girlfriend, which he probably doesn’t, all he wants to do is sleep around and
then talk about it. I hate man-sluts,” Jasmine pronounced, going back to her
beer.

“Yeah,” Kate agreed into Krista’s
nod, “But they sure are nice to look at!”

All the girls fell on the bar
laughing. A truer statement had never been uttered. The three of them were
worse than any man when it came to gawking. They’d all three turn and look,
smiling appreciatively, and then walk away without bothering to say hello,
having no time for the man. Heartache or a bad lay was rarely worth the nice
face or body.

Still…a girl could look!

“But when are you going to get back
out there?” Jasmine asked, as her knowing chuckles subsided.

These girls, to some extent—Kate
more so than Jasmine—knew her history. They knew about the bad nights and the
dark days. They knew her recovery from the scared, weak woman her ex-boyfriend
Jim made. They were her support network most of the time, but sometimes, like
now, they branched out and pushed.

Krista shrugged uncomfortably.
Jasmine was right to push. Krista was young. She’d made some mistakes—one in
particular—but she couldn’t let that dictate the rest of her life. She did need
to move on. She needed to learn to trust again. She needed to find someone safe
who wouldn’t jerk her around.

She just didn’t feel like starting
today. She said as much.

“But you do need to, though,”
Jasmine persisted in a quiet voice.

Krista sighed, tears springing to
her eyes unbidden. “Jim got ahold of a Facebook account. He’s been messaging
with threats.”

“What?” Kate yelled. “When did this
happen? Why am I just hearing about this?”

Krista waved her away, desperate
not to let Jim ruin her day. “It was bound to happen, right? Even when he was
cheating on me, or…the other stuff…he was always possessive. He thought we were
going to get married,” Krista snorted in derision. “It’s just a computer. He
doesn’t know where I am.”

“What’d you do? Did you contact his
parole officer?” Kate pushed with round eyes.

Krista shrugged. “He wasn’t
breaking any laws. I closed all my social media accounts.”

“I never use that crap, anyway.
You’re not missing anything,” Jasmine deflected.

“Well, me neither—hence us not
knowing this first-hand, but… Shit.” Kate stared at her drink.

The girls stared at their drinks
for a quiet moment, each reliving some memory from Jim they’d rather forget.
After a second, Jasmine said, “What did that salesman say when you waved his
paper in front of his face?”

She could turn around on a dime,
thank God. She steered the conversation back to safer waters.

After a deep breath, Krista said,
“I didn’t hear what he said—I sprinted out of there too fast!”

“He wasn’t mad?”

“No. When I met him later, he was
smiling about it. Definitely not mad.”

“Oh my god…” Jasmine had a somber
look, like she’d just found out someone had just died. “He totally knows he
makes you nervous!”

“Yup,” Krista said, peeling the label
off her beer. “It was a print-out of some graphs for a sales presentation.”

“He works on the same floor?”

“No, thank God. He printed it from
the art department. It had his name on it and everything. He had to go
reprint.”

Jasmine started laughing.

“There’ll be no living with him
now. You’re screwed,” Kate said as she shook her head.

“Yup.”

Day two!

Training day, which had only taken
a couple hours of the morning, and consisted of a ridiculously quick job
rundown by a mildly disgruntled employee. Krista had learned a couple things.
One, stay away from someone in the department named Dan. He farted.

When asked for elaboration, she was
told by Rachel, the girl leaving, that she had to sit behind him and smell the
funk all day. It was a medical thing, so not his fault, but still, that was a
thing apparently.

Krista couldn’t stop a few stray
giggles breaking free. What a thing to tell somebody!

Next, don’t talk to the art
department, or Jacob, the IT Manager. Apparently Jacob read people’s email if
they landed on his radar. Rachel didn’t have to tell Krista twice.

The final thing of note—no one
talked to Research. Don’t take it personally, Krista was told, but just know
that Research employees weren’t the social stars of the company.

That was all Krista had learned.
Not a great start. But one thing was for certain, she fervently hoped Jacob
wasn’t as hot as Sean.

Time passed quickly after that. In
a new job, a person never really knew what they were doing for the first few
months, and Krista was no exception. But the pace was slow, and the database
her department used for all their statistical information on products was
pretty easy to figure out. Soon Krista was churning out reports like a pro,
turning them in exactly on time so as not to get a pink slip.

That had been something she wished
Rachel would’ve hinted about. When to turn in a report!

The first request for research
Krista got, which was on toothpaste for an ad campaign coming up, saw her
working like a beast, wanting to do her best work and impress her boss. With a
satisfied smile, she had emailed her completed report a day early! She’d wanted
to do jazz hands and shout, “Wacha wacha,” like Fozzie Bear. Why, was anyone’s
guess.

A few minutes later Mr. Montgomery
called her into his office. She could barely contain the strut she was so
impressed with herself. That lasted until she appeared in his open doorway and
saw the world-class scowl.

“When was that information due,
Miss
Marshall
?” he’d asked
immediately.

“Oh, well, it wasn’t due until tomorrow
but I thought you might want to check it over early…”

“We aren’t sprinters here. We take
time to thoroughly review our work before turning it in. I suggest you get back
to it.”

She didn’t bother to argue that out
of the million flaws she possessed, one of them wasn’t lack of thoroughness.
Her entire school career could attest to that fact, usually with grumbles from
her other team-project members. The way he’d said thoroughly hinted that
wasting time was better than allowing the rest of the company to know the
department could handle more work.

“Right, good point!” She’d thrown
him something barely closer to a smile than a grimace, and scampered out. It
had been a bad start to her new job. One of them, anyway.

It was a nice day in October,
nearly four months after her start date, when Krista got to work in the usual,
insufferable way via
San Francisco
’s
public transportation. She had the schedule down now, though. Pretty simple,
really. You showed up. If the train was there, you got on. If not, you waited.
Once on, you hoped to hell it didn’t break down.

After just adding carrots to her
grocery list, and wiping residual fear and pain out of her head from her latest
bad dream the night before, Krista walked into the break room with mug in hand.
She slammed into something unexpected, and went careening off toward the wall.

Her lucky mug hit first, bouncing
off and twirling through the air. The universe paused, waiting for the reaction
of a breakable object falling toward a hard surface.

The crash drowned out Krista’s
thoughts.

“Oh no!” she said softly. “My lucky
mug…”

Two large hands braced her, but she
couldn’t focus; her brain started replaying all of the horrors of her first
real job thus far. Things like her horrible first week where, in addition to getting
lost constantly, she did most things wrong, and once actually walked in on a
group of women gossiping about her. Then there was that fiasco with the guy in
the art department, Tommy—she hadn’t seen that coming! He’d completely
blindsided her asking to go for coffee, which followed with him getting a
rejection so blunt she couldn’t sleep that night from guilt.

But seriously, he just kind of
sprung it on her. She’d reacted more in fright than anything else. Then when
she tried to apologize, they basically shooed her away. She went from a funny
Research girl to a hated monster overnight. They didn’t even care that he found
another girl within a couple weeks, Krista became enemy number one.

All this was egged on by the
habitual nightmares of Jim she couldn’t shake even though she’d moved away from
that old life. A broken lucky mug might as well be a funeral song. It was the
symbol of good luck she got with each new venture; new semester, new job. She
wasn’t all that superstitious but this one thing was law. She wouldn’t stand a
chance.

With glassy eyes, she bent to
collect the two biggest pieces. Forlorn, with thick fingers, she tried to fit
them together, remembering the last time she’d broken a lucky mug. She’d had to
drop a class. It had been that bad!

Near tears, she barely recognized
the presence kneel beside her.

“Are you okay?” Sean’s voice
rumbled gently.

She looked up into his concerned
Romanesque features. For the first time, she no longer cared if he was
handsome. Or his fantastic smell. She’d landed in a crisis.

“My lucky mug,” she pleaded. “I
don’t think I can fix it.”

~*~*~*~

Sean’s chest constricted strangely
with Krista’s words. She looked like a fallen angel perched on her knees,
holding the fragments of her blue mug in her outstretched hands. Her eyes were
filled with desperation as they pleaded with him, begging for a different
outcome than what she was experiencing.

If he wasn’t so drawn in by her
despair, he’d be outright laughing. She couldn’t have picked an uglier mug if
she’d tried.

“We have plenty. We can have this
cleaned up in a flash.” He bent over to scoop up the biggest pieces and stood,
leaning towards the garbage can.

“No!”

He froze.

“You can’t throw them away!”

“I don’t understand.” Sean looked
from the pieces in his hand to those in hers. Cracking a smile, he said, “I
don’t think it’ll hold coffee anymore.”

“It’s my lucky mug. If I have a
test or get nervous or something, I have my lucky mug to comfort me. You can’t
just throw it away. It’s a process. I know it sounds dumb…”

“And I broke it; your lucky mug.”

Krista shrugged, sadness haunting
her. “I was the one that ran into you.”

The downtrodden look on her face
pinched Sean’s insides, while the smell of her, lavender and mysterious
femininity, tickled his nose.

He’d seen this woman around a lot,
noticing her gliding through hallways and getting printouts or making copies.
He kept trying to catch her on her own, to get her to agree to an afterhours
meet up. Unfortunately, when she saw him she either went sprinting in the
opposite direction, or she stared at him mutely and made ready to leave
immediately. He was sure it was because of the rumors and his track record, but
she was a hot little number. Geeky as all hell, but there was an intelligence
there that befuddled him. When she looked at a person, you could tell she was
analyzing; working things out. She constantly had him intrigued and turned on
at the same time. He wanted to sample the merchandise.

He’d just stumbled on his chance.

“I’ll fix it,” he said quickly,
taking the few fragments she held.

Her large round eyes met his. The
connection sparked intensity, a rush of lust that had him hard immediately. He
stepped closer. He needed to turn this feeling into sex; to get her to make a
promise here that he could cash in later that night.

Her hands tightened convulsively.
Sweat beaded her brow. She was uncomfortable; struggling with their proximity.
Wanting to get away, but drawn in despite it. He had an effect on her; she just
didn’t want to give in to it.

And while usually a girl’s
reluctance was like a hunt, the thrill of turning her initial rejection into
begging to orgasm being the best high, suddenly Sean became aware that
something about this was different. Krista wasn’t worried about the rumors the
ladies told about him in the break room, or him not calling after they hooked
up—something else was making her hesitate. Like a cloud hanging over her,
something else was riding this scene.

Sean’s insides pinched again,
making him squirm uncomfortably for the second time. He backed off.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then,
if you’re sure you’re okay?” Sean murmured, keeping the fragments. The time
wasn’t right, but the in was gold, and he wasn’t about to let that go.

Krista nodded mutely, staring at
his hands containing the broken mug with baleful eyes.

“Okay, then. See ya…”

As he walked up the corridor,
letting the strange feelings of a moment ago dissipate, he couldn’t help a smug
grin etching his face. He didn’t know what just happened, but he had the key to
her chastity belt in his hands. The timing might not be good right now, but
they worked together and he was a master. He’d get that afterhours meet up, he
just needed to put a little effort into it.

*****

The tears of defeat were on their
way, Krista could feel it.

As she entered her house, welcoming
the familiar feel of her space, she immediately turned left toward her room.
The day had tap-danced on her last nerves. Her future looked bleak within that
department, she broke her lucky mug, and people didn’t like her solely because she
was from the Research department.

“Krista! Come in here a second.”

Krista let her head fall back and
groaned. It was the last thing she needed.

Ben was in the living room,
standing in a murder scene, staring at a reddish mess of canvas. Clear plastic
covered ceiling to floor in large swoops. Purple sheets protected furniture.
Green sheets protected lamps and tables. The only area left uncovered was the
ceiling itself.

“Hi-ya, Ben. Are you plotting to
kill me?”

Ben was wearing goggles and white
coveralls smeared with paint. He turned toward her, a brush dripping red paint
onto his runners.

He lifted the goggles to his head
and looked around. “Oh, ha. I didn’t realize it looked like a murder scene.
Wait!”

Ben turned back to his canvas, on
the brink of some great epiphany. Krista waited patiently. There was no point
in rushing him when he was like this. The guy had more creativity than Krista
knew existed. He could use that creativity for graphic design, which was his
profession, or art school, which was his daytime activity, but also for fixing
things, like the sink or a lopsided table. He could rig up a contraption to
keep a car wheel on if he really put his mind to it.

He was also wicked smart. He knew
things that normal people had to look up on their smartphone. If he could be
persuaded to go to Pub Trivia Night, his team always won. Always. Kate and
Jasmine badgered him to go constantly.

Sometimes the guy came out with
things, as random thoughts, that made Krista feel like a first-grader talking
to a college professor. His intelligence would almost be more manageable if he
rubbed her face it in. But no, he remained an anomaly because he was also the
sweetest guy alive. His quirks had to be borne and dealt with, because in turn,
he would drop everything for a friend.

So now, Krista found herself
staving off her crying session to stand in a living room, dodging a flying
paint brush, just so Ben could work on his painting.

Abruptly Ben turned toward her, his
hands on his hips, the red from the paint brush bleeding down his leg.

“How was your day?” he asked
analytically.

“Well, uh…”

“I’m sorry, that was brusque.” His
voice softened, “How was your day?”

He wasn’t asking to be supportive,
he was asking to solve some weird puzzle he knew existed. It made her nervous.
“It was fine...”

He stared at her, his mental gears
turning. She knew that look. Either she could just tell him now, or he’d follow
her around and make her tell him later. Sweet, but also pushy when he was
working on something.

“Well, actually, it was awful.”
Krista walked over to the dining room, which was just across the way, and
dumped herself into a chair. “Probably the worst day in a series of bad days,
dating back months. Seriously bad.”

“I knew it!” Ben exclaimed, looking
back at his large abstract painting. He turned back just as quickly, his
excitement melted down into a look of concern. “How horrible of me. Are you
okay? I didn’t mean to be excited for your—“

Apparently Krista wasn’t the only
socially awkward person around, which is why they got along splendidly. She cut
him off by swiping her hand through the air.

“I know, I know. You care, blah
blah. What is it that you think you know? Are you clairvoyant, now?”

“Krista,” Ben took a step toward
her, his feet approaching the end of the painter’s canvas. He looked up in
frustration. “I do care. Do you need a hug?”

Krista started laughing, she
couldn’t help it. Her day was bad, and things weren’t going well, but
admittedly, she was being a bit overdramatic. She’d been through worse problems
in her life; she’d figure this out. It just took Ben’s over-anxious concern to
shed light on it.

She changed the subject. “You know,
Abbey is going to kill you if she sees her living room looking like this.”