Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(49)
Hank surprised me by not immediately agreeing. Instead, he swallowed thickly, his gaze dimming by degrees, his hand reaching for the doorknob behind him. “Oh yeah, right,” he said, turning, pausing for a tick, staring at the doorknob like he’d never seen one before, taking a deep breath, and then finally opening the door. “Lucky me.”
CHAPTER 13
HANK
“. . . before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
HARPER LEE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Chest tight and concentration impossible, I bungled my third drink order of the night. Halfway through making an Old Fashioned instead of a Manhattan, I cursed under my breath, realizing the error after I’d already poured the top-shelf bourbon. Dumping the contents, I started over, my earlier conversation with Charlotte on repeat in my head. I cursed again.
I needed to apologize.
For no less than the hundredth time, my attention drifted to the hallway leading to the offices. Likely, she was still there, still working, still believing I wanted her gone, and still thinking I was the world’s biggest bucket of turds. Turns out, the only experience more frustrating than being attracted to Charlotte and believing I’d be seeing her at work five days a week was being attracted to Charlotte and knowing there existed no excuse to see her again after the next fourteen days.
“You all right, boss?”
I blinked, my eyes finding Tina standing on the other side of the bar, a tray in her hands, a wrinkle between her eyebrows.
“Fine.” Squinting, I poured the Manhattan into a waiting glass. The music tonight gave me a headache. “Sorry about messing up your drink order earlier.”
“That’s okay.” She waved away my apology. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I nodded. “Just fine.” Stamping on a tight smile, I leaned to the side to peer around her. “Better get back to it.” The patrons at her cluster of tables were looking at us, not the stage.
Tina’s expression of concern hardened into the mask she typically wore while working the floor. She flipped the long black hair of her wig and cocked her hip to the side. As she sauntered off, I forced my eyes to the top-shelf rye—which was running low—rather than allowing them to stray again. I needed to concentrate on work and forget about the woman in the office down the hall who thought of me as a villain. Usually, I wouldn’t care what anyone thought.
But with this woman . . . I needed to apologize.
Charlotte had caught me at a bad moment earlier, my discussion with Patty still fresh in my mind. Working together long-term despite the preposterous intensity of my attraction had held me hostage with dread and I’d been frantic to build a wall between us, establish boundaries, create distance. As such, I’d snapped at her. My intentions hadn’t been disrespect or meanness but to avoid Charlotte until I had more intellect available and my guard raised.
That’s what I focused on for the rest of the night: avoiding Charlotte and raising my guard.
Avoiding her turned out to be easy. She didn’t look for me; she stayed in her office, and according to Dave when we finally closed, she’d left around midnight.
Fortifying my defenses turned out to be less easy. Making drinks, locking up, driving home, brushing my teeth, dropping into bed—all done while my brain reminded the rest of me over and over: Charlotte would be gone for good in less than fourteen days and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I took Saturday off to get my head on straight.
Sleep eluded me. After spending a few hours tossing and turning, I decided to work on the boat before the afternoon heat. Starting today, this next week was set to be a scorcher.
After, perhaps I’d take a leisurely hike on the shady slopes of Cooper Road Trail, catch up on paperwork and emails relating to my rental properties and the management company, look into my parents’ estate and earnings. Then I’d take a nap before meeting Beau for drinks at Genie’s, as was our custom on the weekends. I wanted to prove to myself that, given a little time, distance, and immersion in tedious tasks, my preoccupation with the woman would fade as quickly as it had materialized.
This plan did not work.
Tending to my boat made me wonder if she liked fishing, or swimming, or boating; I bet Charlotte and her kids would love my boat, and Sonya seemed like an intuitive sort of person; she’d make an excellent fisherwoman. But they’d need gear—I’d have to get some child-sized poles. Did her kids know how to swim? What kind of bathing suit did Charlotte own? Pretty soon, I was thinking about Charlotte in a bikini, and me taking off the bikini, and I dropped the wrench I’d been holding into the water, feeling more frustrated than I had a right to be about the loss of a $1.20 wrench.
The families camping and picnicking at the head of Cooper Road Trail reminded me of Charlotte and her kids and had me automatically wondering whether they camped, or liked to, or would be open to it. Joshua seemed like he’d enjoy camping as long as we incorporated a historical component or made trail maps, which wouldn’t be a problem. I knew how to map trails and I could teach him. For camping, would Charlotte prefer an RV or a tent? It made sense to have the kids sleep in a tent while she and I slept in the RV. Or—