Page 39 of The Perfect Deal

“That’s all you have to do,” I assured her with a weak smile.

Her eyebrows knotted together. “But I always thought your job was so hard.”

I cleared my throat, not exactly sure how to respond to that. “Well, it’s an important job. It’s not usually difficult, though sometimes the clients can make it harder than it has to be. They can be difficult.”

Unimpressed, she continued to stare at me, which made me wonder if maybe Landon could’ve hired someone else to do my job a long time ago. He only trusted certain people to interact with our clients, and I was one of those people, but maybe that gave me a false sense of importance.

“I take pictures, too,” I noted. “That’s important.”

One of Constance’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny. Again, she seemed to disagree. “I’ve got it, Liberty. I can handle it.” She gave me a reassuring smile, and I realized she did have it.

“Landon asked me to observe for a little while, so I’ll just stand back and let you do your thing.”

She nodded, obviously not wanting to have me standing over her shoulder all day, but I wasn’t going to go against what the boss had to say.

Within a few minutes, it became clear to me that Constance could manage. I continued to stand there for another hour before I wandered off, heading into Landon’s office. He’d asked me to help him sort out a few files this afternoon, and now was as good as ever.

“Hey, how’s it going?” He didn’t look up from his computer screen as I entered.

“Constance is doing great,” I assured him. “What do you need me to do?”

“Can you take a look at these files and see who you think should handle them while I’m gone? Also, I’ve got a meeting at three, so I’m going to duck out. You’ll be here all afternoon?” He looked at me then, checking to make sure I nodded.

“I will be,” I assured him. “Where are you going?”

“Drinks with a potential client.” He scrunched up his nose. I knew he never really liked that sort of thing, but it was necessary to continue to grow the company. “Poppy and I drove in together today, so I’ll take an Uber over to the restaurant, and then she’ll pick me up. I’ll see you at home. Just make sure those get reassigned and keep an eye on Constance. She can be overly confident.”

I chuckled under my breath. We both knew my job wasn’t that hard. “All right,” I assured him. Carrying the files, I went out to Poppy’s old desk and had a seat, figuring I could work on them there while also “keeping an eye” on Constance.

It didn’t take me too long to get the files sorted and delivered to the execs who would be handling them in Landon’s absence. After that, I wandered back to Poppy’s desk and started fiddling around with my photographs from camp. I’d gotten most of them edited and sent to Joshua’s company, but I had a few more I wanted to look at. Even though this had nothing to do with my actual job at the drop-shipping company, it was something to do to keep me from going nuts. Besides, Landon was gone for the day.

With no fires to put out, I waited until everyone else went home, almost exactly at five. Then, I walked through the office one more time and headed home. I wasn’t quite as tired as I had been when I’d first returned from camp, but I hadn’t been sleeping well. Obviously, I knew why. Lying awake at night thinking about Joshua was nothing new to me, but being tormented by visions of his body melding with mine only to have him rip away from me was something I still hadn’t gotten used to.

It took me a little longer to drive home than normal. Traffic was bad, and I was content to sit in slow lanes contemplating life rather than putting in the effort to go around. By the time I got home, I was dragging. Thoughts of grabbing a sandwich and going upstairs to watch Netflix and chill by myself were tempting.

But when I walked into the living room, I was greeted by three smiling faces. Two of them were genuine, the other apprehensive. “There she is,” Poppy said cheerfully. “We were just discussing whether or not we should send out a search party.”

I checked the time and noted it was about thirty minutes later than I usually got home. “Traffic wasn’t so fabulous today,” I muttered. Then, my eyes landed on Joshua’s face, and my breath caught in my throat. What the hell was he doing here?

He wasn’t looking directly at me. Not at my face anyway. His eyes were hovering around my shoes, maybe my knees. On the inside, I felt myself beginning to crumble. I wanted to yell at him to get the fuck out of my house, to leave, and never come back. But I couldn’t do that. Not only would that be an obvious sign to my brother that something had gone on that shouldn’t have, it would’ve been really stupid of me. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know all along that I’d have to see Joshua again. We were both in my brother’s wedding after all. I was just sort of hoping it wouldn’t be so soon or so sudden.

“We are going to go out for dinner,” Poppy said, hopping off the couch.

I gave her a look that said, “Why didn’t you warn me?” without saying a word at all, so she continued.

“Landon and I just decided we needed some help planning the upcoming wedding party trip, and since Joshua had already come over to talk to Landon, we thought it would be great to invite the two of you to go along with us. Four heads are better than one, after all.” She flashed that dazzling smile at me, and I found it impossible to be mad at her, even though I kind of wanted to strangle her.

Joshua quietly said, “They’ve promised ‘all you care to eat’ tacos. Who can argue with that?”

I looked at him for a moment, trying to read his angle. Was he here because my brother insisted, and he was trapped? Like I felt? Or was he here because he wanted to see me?

Clearing my throat, I reminded my best friend, “We just had tacos and margaritas on our last adventure.”

“I know,” she said, narrowing one eye. “But since when does Liberty Johnson think there’s such a thing as too many tacos?”

Sighing, I shook my head. She had me there. “Since never.”

“Great, then let’s go.” Landon pulled himself up off the couch, and we headed out to his vehicle. The moment we saw his truck in the driveway, Joshua shouted, “Shotgun!” Poppy and I turned to look at him, her mouth falling open, and he shrugged. “Poppy, everyone knows the rules of shotgun. If you wanted to sit in the front with your man, you should’ve said something.”