Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(75)

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Ray asked, collecting the rest of the books.

“No. I’ll talk to him when I get downstairs.”

“I’m glad you’re a buffer between him and me.” Ray threw in as he followed Sean out. “I don’t think I could tolerate him always looking over my shoulder.”

“Some people probably wonder how you tolerate me looking over your shoulder.”

“Not the women-folk, surely. They’re jealous.”

Sean huffed as the elevator opened.

“No, I’m in a perfect spot,” Ray mused. “I am one step away from your overanxious boss, and one step above an overachieving bookworm. I’d hate to be directly under either of them.”

An image of Krista’s body moving over him flashed through Sean’s head.

“That’s four blushes. My, my—what is she doing to you?”

Sean shook his head and ignored Ray.

Chapter Sixteen

It was Friday again too soon and Krista found herself finished with the rest of Sean’s list. She also found herself with nothing to do for Happy Hour because Jasmine was going to Tahoe and Kate was going on a date with some dude she met at her local coffee house. She insisted he wasn’t g*y. He was a biker with too much facial hair and a giant tattoo of a bare-chested woman riding a dragon on his back.

Jasmine and Kate believed her. Then said maybe going for g*y was better. The conversation would be better, at any rate.

Krista grabbed her latest findings and headed down to Sean’s office. He sat hunched over his desk, studying a piece of paper with incredulous eyes. The surface in front of him looked like an office recycle bin, or like a paper dispenser had rumbled through and dropped a bunch of babies. It was almost as bad as the art department.

“Hey Cap’n,” she said as she paused at the door, doing a quick check that no one was under his desk giving him a blow job.

He looked up in surprise. When he saw who it was, a small smile parted his lips. “Krista,” he said as his face went back to a mask of stress, “How goes it?”

“Great. Can I come in?”

“Of course, yes. Please.” Sean jumped up as if on springs to come around the desk and see if she needed help carrying anything. Seeing she was fine, he returned to his seat, his eyes trained on her new stack of books.

“Not more,” he said in agony.

She let the pile plop on his desk. “What do you mean not more? You’re the one assigning this stuff to me!”

“I didn’t expect you to be so thorough. I showed your stuff to John, half to brag, I admit, and he flipped. Then he had about 800 ideas that I should immediately look up as it pertained to your facts. Then he gave me a last-minute presentation to do. Needless to say, I’ve been chained to my desk ever since. That’ll teach me.” Sean smiled radiantly. It was pretty obvious he liked being right.

She bet John hated being wrong.

“Well, I finished your list. Maybe I can help you with some of the work?”

“You finished my list? Already?”

“My social life took a crap this week so I had nothing better to do than work my ass off.”

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” he asked with a chuckle, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes.

“Only when she makes me. Anyway, should I take this away so you don’t have to look at it?”

“No, no, show me what ya got.” Sean stacked up some of his papers to make room for the new onslaught of work. “By the by, I hear you clean desks …”

Krista paused in her book delivery, turning beet red. “I can explain.”

Sean smiled, reaching across the desk for her cargo. “I’ve seen Marcus’s desk after you’ve passed through. Apparently he never notices until you leave.”

“Yeah, I kinda nudge his papers in the right direction. I haven’t made him get up so I can do a thorough job, yet, but it’s coming.”

“Most of the company has had a walk-through, admiring your latest handiwork. He thinks you are both the sweetest thing on the face of the planet, and also the most hilarious. He doesn’t quite understand how your mind works.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Bad news is, he’s treating the sensation like art.”

Krista yanked at a stray thread in her sweater in embarrassment. “He treats my cleaning his desk like art? What sort of madness is that? Are they high all day long in that department, or what?”

Sean laughed, opening her first book, prompting her to explain work rather than art department people, who were largely inexplicable anyway.

“Okay, I’ve called that one Operation: Spy on the Others, because it’s obvious that’s what you were after. Good luck getting them to spy on me, though.”

“They already are. Spying on you, that is. The reports I get are mainly that you work too fast and make them look bad. Oh, and your singing voice is quite good, but your British accent is the pits. Also that you are an honorary member of the art department mechanical team, whatever that means.”

Sean’s eyes honed in to Krista’s face as she tried to hide behind her hair. “I talk to myself in a British accent when I’ve been without social chit-chat for too long.”

Sean started to laugh. “I was wondering. Anyway, I don’t need to spy on you. If I did, I would see the amount of work headed my way and stop your efforts.”