Page 12 of Ice Cold Heart
Business hours had ended a while ago, so no one manned the desk facing the doors. I’d been in there a handful of times before for admin stuff when I transferred, but the office I needed wasn’t up the stairs in the rooms with the big windows. I was headed into the basement with the rest of the newspaper nerds.
Cole followed me in and nodded at the line of chairs against the wall. “I’ll be waiting here. Text me if you need me. Or scream really loud if you find the serial killer you’re convinced is wandering around Addison.”
He sat in one of the padded chairs, folded his hands over his stomach, and stretched his long legs out in front of him like he had nothing better to do than sit in an empty building waiting for a girl he barely knew.
Maybe he didn’t. It was none of my business if he wanted to waste his evening playing on his phone. I turned to head for the stairs down, then paused. He’d given me what I asked without hesitation. One secret wouldn’t kill me.
Something nobody else knew.
Without turning around, I called his name. “I’ve never had an orgasm I didn’t cause myself.”
His choking sound brought a smile I badly needed after admitting my embarrassing truth. Scott had taken every opportunity to convince me I was the problem. Constant complaints disguised as understanding, demeaning suggestions for ways I could improve, none of it came close to blaming him in any way. Something told me Cole wouldn’t have a similar problem.
I wasn’t sure what waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, but I knew what I left behind at the top of them. A part of me shifted at the soft laughter following my footsteps—a tiny crack in my wall. If I wasn’t careful, Cole could cause everything I’d built to come tumbling down.
I needed to remember he wasn’t the perfect guy he presented to the world. They never were.
6
Ididn’t have a lot of experience with basements, but I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be large and airy. My brows drew together as I hit the big open space at the bottom of the stairs. The last of the daylight spilled in through tall windows to the right, and three offices lined the wall to the left. In the middle, desks clustered at odd angles as if a tornado had recently wound through.
The rapid clicking of a keyboard came from the closest office, so I squared my shoulders and prepared to apologize for being late. When I rounded the office door, though, a stranger looked up from his typing. Slender, with messy black hair, dark eyes, and pronounced cheekbones, the guy grinned at me.
“You must be Avery. I’m Marco Lawson.”
He stood up to shake my hand, and I realized he was tall, really tall. I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes, and I wasn’t particularly short. He wore all black, loose cargo pants and what looked like a band shirt. Even his fingernails were painted black, though they were chipping pretty badly.
I tried not to make any snap judgments, but he couldn’t have been much older than me, which made him a student and definitely not the professor I’d expected to meet. As a general rule, I avoided being alone with strange men, so I didn’t move closer to shake his hand.
Cole may have been on to something with my habit of assuming people were out to kill me.
“Where’s Professor Adkins?” I asked him.
Marco let his hand drop. “Jonah stepped out to grab dinner. The delivery guys never come down here, no matter how many times we ask them not to leave food at the top of the stairs.”
I frowned, both at the first name usage and the flaw in his explanation. “I didn’t see him when I came in.”
He pointed to the back corner past the windows, and I noticed the emergency exit door I’d missed on the first pass. “Jonah has the code, so we take advantage of the proximity to the parking lot.”
Through the wavy glass, I could make out the vague shape of another human. “Are you one of the editors?”
Marco laughed. “Hell, no. I’m just a grunt writer slash photographer slash marketing genius.” He gestured to one of the haphazard desks with two chairs on opposite sides. “Why don’t we sit out here? You can even take the seat closest to the stairs so you stop looking like you might run any second.”
I pursed my lips and took the inside chair. “I don’t run.”
A gleam of respect entered his eyes and he nodded, sitting down opposite me. “Good to know a challenge motivates you. A word of warning? Never let Seb know. He’ll use it to his advantage.”
“Who’s Seb?”
Annoyance flashed across Marco’s face, then disappeared under a friendly smile. “Sebastian Fisher. Our asshole editor who hates nicknames, comfortable clothes, and fun.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I glanced at the emergency exit door again and found myself acutely aware of the seconds ticking past while Cole waited for me upstairs. Since Professor Adkins seemed busy, I might as well ask Marco my questions. “How many people work here?”
Marco pointed to the desks as he rattled off six names I had no hope of remembering, then jerked his thumb at the offices. “Seb has the middle office, Jonah has the corner, and the first one is for anyone who wants privacy. It also has the best chair, so be prepared to throw elbows if you want to use it.”
I filed the information away. “Do we have to work in here?”
“Nope. We’re encouraged to do most of our work elsewhere. If Seb had his way, he’d lock the doors and only let the upper level staff into these hallowed halls. Meaning him. I live in the dorms, so I’m happy to crush his dreams if it means I get more than four square feet of space to myself.”