Three more and I could kiss him.
“I don’t twerk,” he whispers, one hand twitching as if it wants to touch me.
“I don’t do any of the things Mark J. thinks I do,” I whisper back. And then I cringe, because…
“Mark J.? You memorized his name tag?” One of Declan’s eyebrows shoots up, and it’s the sexiest look ever, like George Clooney and Channing Tatum and Sam Heughan rolled into one.
“He’s…uh…”
“Oh,” Declan says, his nostrils flaring a bit, lips tight to hold back a smile. “I see. He’s your…” The words go low and Declan makes a few guttural noises and nose twitches that either mean he has a mild case of Tourette syndrome or he’s suggesting that I’m doing the nasty with Mark J.
This is where the path diverges in the woods, and I? I took the path most likely to humiliate me.
For the sake of being a professional.
“Yes!” I shout as the door opens and in walks a very confused kid who looks to be about ten years old. He double-checks the main door, then gawks at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. I like that. Kids are honest. Declan’s all smoke and whiskey with me, teasing and playing with me, and I have been up since 4:12 a.m. being texted by secret shoppers who dropped acid and saw unicorns.
Don’t play games with me.
“Yes, that’s right! Mark J. and I are doing it,” I whisper in Declan’s ear as the kid runs back to his table and I work on my own escape. “We do it in the walk-in cooler, right by the salad bins. He lays me out over the break table outside and always throws the cigarette butts in the ashtray away. A true romantic. On uniform delivery day he’s right there in the truck with me, careful to keep the apron clean while meeting my needs. Mark J. is the man.”
I inch over to the door and sprint out to my car as Mark J., now safely behind the front counter, shouts, “Have a good day!”
Chapter Four
My hands shake as I climb in my unlocked car and rifle under the driver’s seat in search of my keys.
I find the giant screwdriver. Yes, that is my “keys.” The original key broke off in the lock a few months ago and my mechanic—AKA my dad—stripped out the lock and now I shove a giant flathead screwdriver into the ignition and turn and pray.
That’s the closest thing in my life to something being inserted into a hole every day.
The car turns over and I gun the engine. After backing up slowly, the car vibrates as I make a right turn onto the main road and head to the office.
The vibrations aren’t from the car, which runs smoothly once you actually get it started. Those are my nerves jangling a mile a minute, my body in some kind of post-urinal shock.
I examine my hand. The toilet hand. And then I lean back and feel a bulge at the base of my back. And not the fun kind.
Dirty hand reaches back and finds my sweaty smartphone. The screen is not glowing, and it seems to have developed a sheen of sweat. Or maybe that’s from me. Running from the restaurant to my car was about the most exercise I’ve had in months.
As the familiar roads come into view and I guide my car on autopilot back to my apartment, I try to unwind the crazy, jumbled mess of threaded thoughts that can’t untangle just yet. Hot guy. Hiding in the men’s room. Dropping my phone in the toilet. Being caught with my hand in there. Being rescued and dripping toilet juice on Hot Guy.
And that was the good part of the morning.
My phone makes a creepy bleating sound, like baby seals dying at slaughter. The screen flickers like it’s the last known electronic signal after nuclear war.
I try to shut it off but it just continues making an anemic whirring sound. This is what robots sound like when they die. The noise will invade my dreams for the next few weeks.
A deep breath will cleanse me. No dice. How about two? Nope. Nuthin’. Ten don’t really help. By the time I’ve tried twenty-three deep breaths, I am home and feeling a little faint, with tingly lips.
Let’s not add syncope to my growing list of Very Bad Things That Happen on a Mystery Shop.
I park in my assigned spot next to the trashcans, kill the engine, and slowly bang my forehead against the steering wheel. Twenty-three bangs actually calm me. Dented brow and all. By the time I stop, I feel like I can handle a basic shower.
That’s more than I was capable of ten minutes ago. Other than a shower with Mr. Suit.
Who are you, a voice asks me, and what have you done with asexual Shannon?
Sitting out here with my dented head and confused heart won’t get me anywhere. Amanda’s probably frantically trying to find me, and a search party worthy of a missing Malaysian jet is about to be triggered if she calls my mom.
My mom can be a bit dramatic. A bit. The way Miley Cyrus can be a bit controversial.
I sprint into my house, holding the phone like it’s a bomb. My apartment is a garage. Mostly. I live above a two-car garage in a neighborhood right behind a college, a one-bedroom place I share with my sister. It requires actual exertion on my part to enter and exit. Twenty-seven nearly vertical steps get me to my front door. An actual key (as opposed to a screwdriver) opens the front door, and then bam!
I’m assaulted by a glaring cat.
My cat makes Grumpy Cat look like Rainbow Brite. If glares could peel paint, I could hire out Chuckles to a paint contractor and quit my job, living off my pet’s singular skill.
People who think animals have expressionless faces are like people who can ignore an open package of Oreos.
Not quite human.
Chuckles—who probably started glaring after we named him as a puffball kitten ten years ago—sits primly in front of the door, a sentry serving as witness to some oversight of mine.
With a guilty look, I survey my kitchen, which is the first room you walk into in my apartment. Water dish full. Food dish half full.
Litter box—full.
Ah. “I’m sorry, Chuckles. I was too busy putting my hand down a human toilet today. I’ve had quite enough of excrement today. But I’ll change it anyhow, because if you look at me like that much longer I’ll burst into flame and they’ll find us in a few weeks, you noshing on my crispy legs.”
“You should think about the fact that you say more to your cat than you do to your own mother,” Satan says from behind my ficus plant.
I scream. Chuckles screams. I pick up Chuckles and fling him at the plant, which serves exactly three purposes. First, it reveals my stupidity. Second, it makes Chuckles plot my death on a whole new level. And third, it makes my mother sidestep the whole fiasco with the fluid movement of a woman who teaches yoga, leaving her to glare at me with a look that makes me realize exactly where Chuckles learned it from.