Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(85)

Sean crossed to the driver’s side as the other man got into the car. Ben was a trip. Small, nerdy, mousy—he wasn’t a type of guy Sean had ever hung out with—which was about to change. Ben obviously knew Krista well, which meant they were friends. It was another “in” to her life, and Sean would take everything he could get. He wanted to get bit again.

When Sean crawled in, the two were sitting in silence. “All set?”

“Yup,” Ben said, crossing his hands on his lap. Krista looked out the window.

“Kris, I didn’t have any choice. You can just order more,” Ben said reasonably.

“I know. I need a minute to mope.”

“Are you like this with all food, or just pizza?” Sean asked as he started the car.

“Never touch her chocolate,” Ben declared as he looked over his pile of art in the back seat.

“So what are you working on?” Sean asked Ben.

Chapter Eighteen

Krista immediately zoned out. Once Ben got going he was unstoppable, and it all sounded harebrained. To Krista, a sculpture made out of junk was still just a pile of junk. To Ben, it was an expression of humanity’s struggle with garbage. And he was paying top dollar to express that. Purely illogical.

Once they got to the building and parked, Krista and Sean helped Ben carry all his crap up to the office Sean would soon move into. Apparently Ben would get to work in the art department later, after Sean was sure everyone had gone home. They all walked in to the giant office, equipped with a bookcase, a giant desk, a table with chairs around it, and a great view.

“Nice life,” Ben said, looking around. “It’s bigger than my bedroom.”

“It was not easy to get.” Sean crossed to a visitor chair and pointed for Ben to take the plush leather seat behind the desk. Ben looked way out of place.

“Krista, show him what we got and what we need,” Sean said as he leaned back, closed his eyes and crossed his ankle over his knee.

“Please,” she replied in her mother’s voice.

“S’il te plaȋt,” Sean said in French with a smirk. Krista got a zing in her stomach that he used the familiar form. Also that he even knew it. “But first, look in the right top desk drawer.”

Krista slid the drawer open and stared down at a well-organized drawer full of office supplies.

“Right desk drawer.”

“Oh,” Krista said, not quite done moping about her pizza. She’d grown up with a little sister who ate everything of Krista’s. Literally everything. Ice cream was the worst. When you got home after school and you wanted your Rocky Road, especially after thinking about it all day, and you opened the carton, so excited, and you found … an empty freaking carton with a note that said, “Loser!” it really killed a girl’s mood. It didn’t matter where she hid her food, either, her sister found it and ate it—even the stuff the wench didn’t like.

It was now one of her biggest pet peeves.

She opened the drawer and found a Snickers.

“Will that help?” Sean asked, observing her.

Krista snatched it and met his sparkling green eyes. “You keep candy in your desk?”

“Snickers for when I can’t get out to lunch and need a lift, but I’ll start stocking more from now on.”

“Wise,” Ben nodded.

Krista held on to the Snickers as she leaned over Ben and logged into the computer. She accessed the art database and presentation, both showing him the research, which he blinked at and shook his head, and then the art portion.

When she was done, he said, “That’s a mess.”

“Can you put it together?” Sean asked, hope replaced with worry.

“Well, do you have any other pictures? Those don’t really go with what you’re trying to convey.”

“Show him the files,” Sean gave a vague motion with his finger.

“Please,” Krista said again, hiding a chuckle as she clicked the mouse over Ben’s shoulder.

Sean sighed. “Pretty please.”

“Don’t sigh around Jasmine,” Ben said as his eyes followed Krista’s hands on the keyboard. “She’ll flick you in the head. It hurts.”

Sean sat forward laughing as Krista showed Ben how to search the database. Ben was a smart kid—it took him one pass and he was on his own. He made happy sounds of an art nerd’s wet dream. It took him all of fifteen minutes to find what he was after, then another fifteen putting everything together. He lost no time in accessing Krista’s research and changing the layout. “Kris, I don’t know how to work with this graph and stuff.”

Mouth full of Snickers, she saw her information in different colors and different places on the page. The only thing she’d done that still looked the same was the actual data.

“Sean seems to think I do good work,” she said in humorous exasperation. “Then you come in and change everything like I’m a dunce.”

Ben shrugged, “It’s the hair color.”

Sean started laughing again.

Ignoring Sean, but unable to keep a small smile from her lips, Krista changed the graph to Ben’s precise, and irritating, qualifications, then straightened up and looked at him.

“Print,” Ben commanded. “Now you can just put it together while I look through all this great art! My company doesn’t hold a candle to all this!”