Page 46 of Haunt the Mall
He choked on laughter. “Pardon?”
Shit. Why was I making euphemisms in the middle of the day? He’d think I only wanted one thing—and it wasn’t a fuzzy toy.
“I was talking about the spider plush.” I went on tip-toes to gauge his reaction, but I couldn’t spot him in the crowd anymore. Where was he?
“You’re not very good at stalking, are you?” he mused.
“I’m not stalking you,” I said, my traitorous voice rising in pitch. Could he see me?
Soft footfall on the stairs filtered through the noise.
Let it be him, I prayed, and turned slowly.
There he climbed. His skin radiated with a healthy hue. He paused and smiled at me, holding his phone to his diamond-sharp features so his voice rumbled through my ears and my fingertips. “No, you wouldn’t stalk me. I’d never be so lucky.”
Oh my god. What the fuck were we doing?
I clutched my cross and parted my lips. “H…hi.”
He hung up, then slipped the phone into his pocket. “Hello, Kat. Were you watching over me?”
“I guess so.” My lips twitched with an attempted smile. He would get into trouble pulling pranks on horny customers like me.
He leaned up from the stairs to kiss my cheek.
The singular brush of his lips made my heart jump into my throat. I tensed with the urge to grab his face and give him an eager greeting. “I-I don’t expect this to be a daily thing, by the way. If I come by and you’re busy—”
“I’m not busy,” he stated.
The crowd below indicated otherwise. Did anything faze him besides hair-pulling?
He eyed me and frowned. “Are you okay?”
I fiddled with my necklace. “Yeah, no, absolutely. Just a long, rough day already.”
“What’s up?” He stretched his shoulders and his bangs slid in front of his tempting eyes.
Hook-ups didn’t care about feelings, right?
I’d try to make this quick. “I, um, I had to cover for somebody super last-minute,” I said. “This girl was supposed to be opening solo, but she called in sick to nurse a hangover.”
He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. “She said that?”
“Well, I’m on her social media, so I saw some evidence. We used to be friends.”
Used to be? Shit. I sucked in a sharp breath and pushed past that unexpected tidbit. “Anyways, she came in a few hours before her shift would’ve ended, but only after I ‘bitched’ to another coworker about having to work the whole day because of it. I was scheduled to close, you know?”
He propped his chin up and nodded. Was all this an expected part of management?
I glanced at the widow. “Anyway, I’m not sure how to handle it. Or if it needs to be handled at all. I mean, she did show up.”
“Five hours late,” he demurred.
“Yeah. After calling in sick. She could’ve stayed home the whole day, I guess.” I shrugged. “So, I have a few hours to kill until my actual shift.”
He narrowed his gaze and tilted his head. “Do you not like discipline?”
“What do you mean? Like, in bed?” I smiled and twirled my necklace. I didn’t mind a firm hand when the occasion called for it.