Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Asshole Coworker 1: He in trouble?
Jess: Nope. Bye.
My phone buzzed again, but I didn’t like Travis. The feeling was mutual, more than mutual actually. Derek Travis. He’d been up my ass for as long as I’d been working as a parole officer. Didn’t know why or what his problem was since they needed female parole officers. I did my job, did it well, and only butted heads with him a couple of times. But I’d asked about Jimmy because I needed to make sure, and he’d answered. The topic was done as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to give him any reason to bug Jimmy, but sometimes they lied, hence the text.
“Here you go, Miss Jess.”
Even with Jimmy’s outbursts or disagreements, I always liked him. He couldn’t handle his temper at times, but he was usually funny about it, swinging on himself more than swinging on others. Ninety-five percent of the time, he didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
“What do I owe you, Jimmy?”
His smile was almost blinding, his two massive hands resting on the sides of the register and his big frame hunched forward and down. That’d been one of his old habits, I was remembering too. He tried to make himself smaller than he was, usually to make others feel more comfortable around him.
“Nothing, Miss Jess. It’s on me.”
I glanced to his coworkers, seeing one watching us with a bit too much interest for my liking. I leaned closer to Jimmy and lowered my voice. “Are you sure that you got the cash on you?”
He started to bolster up, his mouth opening, a pink color coming to his neck, more than what it was, but I kept on. “Because I know you travel with as little cash as necessary. Your heart’s in the right place, but if you find yourself short on the exact cash, I wouldn’t want someone to notice and let your boss know, if you get my drift.” My eyes darted to that coworker trying to listen in. He’d washed the same two-by-two inches of counter eighteen times now.
Getting my drift, Jimmy’s shoulders sank even lower. “Sorry, Miss Jess. You’re right.” He told me the amount I owed, and I handed over the cash. When he started to give me the change, I waved my hand, indicating he should keep it. He was putting it in their tip jar when I headed off.
Going to the stairs, I scanned for our seats. Kelly wasn’t there.
Knowing I’d need a bathroom break myself before too long, I sipped my beer and headed in the direction Kelly had gone.
The line was too long at the first one, but being the slightly buzzed savvy parole officer I was, I knew there’d be more bathrooms farther away from the main area. I kept going, and I had half my beer sipped before I found a door. It said “bathrooms” and had an arrow, so I was following the arrow.
I surged through, and oh crap.
I was in the exit stairwell. I’d made a mistake.
I turned, reaching for the door, when I heard just above me, “—hear about it. I do not care.”
I moved back, angled my head. He wasn’t all the way up to the next floor, but he was halfway up to the top. His back was turned slightly toward the stairway, and he was talking on the phone. “Yes. Yes.”
I should go. That was a private call, not my business.
I pushed the door handle to go out, but nothing. The door was locked.
I was locked inside.
Well, shitters.
I had a beer. I’d soon have a bladder that would need to be emptied, and that guy was still on his phone.
“—wait. Someone is here.”
Oh, double shitters.
I turned when he started down the stairs.
I called up, “I’m sorry! I didn’t know these doors . . .” I trailed off as he turned the corner, now facing me and coming down the stairs directly to me. And I trailed off because good gracious, this man was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen.
He had pretty features. His eyes were a gray-hazel color, and yes, even from this distance, I was struck at how clear they were. His cheekbones were set wide on the sides of his face, but he had such a square jawline that it worked for him. He was rugged but handsome and hot all at the same time. I was putting his height at six four. Weight at 210. He was dressed in some seriously nice threads, all business suit. His shoes were the expensive kind, like what I would joke that a Wall Street dude would wear to a hockey game. At seeing me, he paused, but then a wicked grin slowly spread over his face, and that knocked me back a bit too.
It was almost a nice punch to my sternum, one to shock me more than incapacitate me.