Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(18)

“Oh, well…Uh, no, of course not!”

“Then no, you won’t be interrupting my morning ritual of making coffee. Anyway, Sean, like I was saying—or are you bored?”

“Fire away.”

“Right.” Krista got a sugar packet and shook it within an inch of its life. “Like I was saying, I liked one of the five, right? And guess which one of the five didn’t call?”

Sean raised his eyebrows.

“Exactly. The one I liked. He was hot and laid back and cool. He didn’t call. Of course he didn’t. But the others—oh they called lots. I had to return a call on each one to get them to stop freaking calling me! So then I tried to say I didn’t want to go out with them, right? And they asked why I gave them the envelope. It was a good point, so now I have freaking four dates in the next two weeks with guys I don’t want to talk to. Did I mention I hate first dates?”

Krista stared accusingly at Sean.

“Well, dear, how will you ever meet someone? You’re single, I take it?”

Krista looked at Cindy with that flat stare again, daring her to interrupt their conversation one more time. After Cindy was fidgeting nervously, Krista turned back to Sean.

“So now I have to go on these dates, sit at some restaurant awkwardly, listen to them as they nonstop talk about their lives, and pretend to be having a good time because I’m too nice to say how uncomfortable I am! Urg!”

“Then why did you go in the first place?” Sean asked, inwardly smiling at Cindy’s discomfort.

“You try saying no to Kate! But I did meet Paul. He was at the bar directly after to shoot the shi—ah, to chat. He didn’t do the speed dating thing, but his friends did, so that’s how we all kinda met. Kate and Jasmine wanted to hook up with the friends…“

“Together?” Cindy exclaimed.

“Cindy, my dear, you watch too much  p**n ,” Krista said as she stirred her coffee. “Anyway, he’s okay. Paul, I mean. Really sweet. I should’ve just hung out with him that evening, but we had to rush off to meet Jasmine’s friends—” She grimaced, sighed and shook her head all at the same time. “Ah life, it sucks, yes? Well, anyway, I’ll catch you all later.”

Without further ado, Krista trudged out with her coffee in hand and her cheek bright red.

“What’s got into her?” Cindy asked indignantly.

“She had a bad weekend,” Sean explained, still feeling as light as a balloon. If he didn’t already want her, he would now. He loved sassy women.

When Sean got back to his desk, he had an email from Krista.

Hi Sean,

What can I say, I’m an a-hole. Sorry about the tirade. Always be wary when I’ve had a bad weekend full of tequila and bad lays. I can be a cranky S.O.B.

P.S. I don’t plan to apologize to Cindy. I hope you did damage control. You’re good at that sort of thing. 

Bad lays? So she wasn’t so saintly after all.

The next email was from John. Reading it with a hard-on just felt wrong.

~*~*~*~

Krista was working on her first real project, which would turn into her first real, honest-to-God presentation. She’d been at it for a half hour and already come up against a brick wall.

Her boss had emailed her the subject, which was a type of sports drink, and noted that if she had any questions, she should “go ahead and ask sales directly.” In other words, don’t bother him; it’s none of his business.

Not afraid of forging ahead without a support system, or dead weight, depending on how one looked at it, the first thing she’d done was research sports drinks in the company’s giant database. That yielded a ton of information, way too much for any one presentation. The topic had to be narrowed down somewhat. And while she had read the email 800 times, there was nothing in it to help.

So here she was, halfway into a bad day, also halfway into her first real assignment, and already with questions. It was probably a departmental record.

She sent an email to the general Sales account, having no one specific listed in her email, asking for some specific information. It would take a second for the email to be routed, so she headed to the other side of the floor to get a soda. By the time she got back, she had a message in her inbox. She nearly peed herself.

It was from Sean.

He must not have realized he wasn’t supposed to respond to her last email, and was now trying to glean some more of her private info while the vault was open. When her eyes skimmed lower, her heart froze. Even worse still.

Dear Krista,

I received your email from the main Sales email account. In future, please contact me directly with any questions about this presentation.

Attached you will find specific parameters and demographics I would like to encompass within this presentation. If you have any problems with the guidelines, please notify me immediately. I am excited to be working with you on this campaign.

Best regards,

Sean McAdams

Before she could open the attachment, she got another email.

Dear Krista,

On hindsight, I am not sure how thorough James was about protocol for getting a presentation approved. He will need to sign off on any final content. He will then forward it to Sales for our viewing pleasure, but will not give us time to work with the Researcher on format.

As a special favor to me, I wondered if you might send me a copy of your presentation when you send it to him? I can then have more time to look it over. I would greatly appreciate it.