“Okay, that one’s a little funny,” I admit grudgingly, but only because I’m in a special man-hating mood.
“Yeah, that’s one of my wife’s favorites, too.”
Poor Phyllis. The woman is a saint.
The elevator spits me out on the thirty-third floor right in the middle of another fart joke, this one involving the pope. I say good-bye to Denny and trudge to my desk, expecting to be the only moron at work at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, but to my great shock, I’m not alone.
Michael Maddox stands at the wall of windows across from the cubicle field, gazing out into the gray December morning with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets and his proud shoulders rounded with an invisible weight.
I stop dead in my tracks. My heart leaps into my throat. All my nerve endings sit up and holler rr-ow!, like Mr. Bingley when he wants his dinner.
Michael looks like he might’ve slept in his clothes. His hair is rumpled, his shirt is wrinkled, his normally crisply pressed trousers are distinctly uncrisp. A shadow of stubble darkens his square jaw, and holy hell the man is beautiful.
I must make a little gurgle of lust, because Michael turns and sees me standing there, staring at him in a hazy, hormone-fueled stupor.
“Oh,” he says, startled.
Oh, indeed. How much drool must be coating my chin?
Flustered, I stammer, “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-to disturb you. I just . . . just . . .”
My lips aren’t working right. My brain is refusing to coordinate with my tongue, which sits inside my mouth like roadkill, trampled to death and gathering flies.
“You’re working again today?”
The universe, taking pity on how utterly pathetic I am, finally allows me the power of speech. “Yes.”
Michael draws a breath, squares his shoulders, then smiles. It’s forced but gorgeous nonetheless. “We can’t be paying you enough for this kind of dedication.”
Take off all your clothes and I’ll consider us even.
I laugh. It sounds unhinged, like I’ve recently freebased cocaine.
He blinks at me as a wave of heat rises from my neck to my hairline. I send him a pinched smile, wrench my gaze from his, and scurry over to my desk like some nocturnal rodent in search of food. I collapse into my chair. It wheezes in protest and deflates six inches on its pneumatic cylinder, leaving me boob-high to the desk with my bulky handbag shoved up under my chin.
Which is how Michael finds me.
“Oh dear. Are you all right?”
He peers down at me from his godlike height, genuinely concerned by the ridiculous predicament of the silly mortal girl in the puffy down jacket the color of rancid pea soup that her mother gave her when she moved to New York a lifetime ago and she was too cheap to replace.
Ah, hindsight. You are one giant, ruthless bitch.
“Fine,” I manage, cheeks blazing. With as much dignity as I can muster—which isn’t much—I push the chair back, stand, set my handbag on the desk, and readjust the chair, all the while acutely aware of Michael’s presence.
He must think I’m an absolute train wreck of a human being. He must think I’m a stuttering, clumsy fool who doesn’t have the coordination God gave a one-legged goat. He must think—
“I think we need to replace that chair.” He frowns at the object in question as if it has offended him by refusing to more stoically bear my weight.
I take that as evidence of his chivalry and nearly swoon. I catch myself before my knees give out and try to casually steady myself against the desk, but I’m too far away, so my casual lean turns into a highly awkward sideways stagger until my thigh collides with the edge of the desk with a thunk that topples the jar of pens next to the computer and sets the calendar of Grumpy Cat swinging from side to side.
I would literally kill a small child right now for the power of invisibility.
“You seem as out of sorts as I am,” says Michael with a melancholy smile. “I hope your Saturday was better than mine.”
I freeze. Ohmigod. Was that an invitation to talk about his personal life? Is he asking me about my personal life? What do I do? What should I say?
After a few moments, when it becomes clear I’m unable to act like a functioning adult, Michael’s smile falters. “Well, I’ll let you get to it.”
When he turns to leave, I blurt, “Yes!”
Startled again, Michael looks back at me with wide eyes. “Sorry?”
I make myself a promise that if I can just get through the next sixty seconds without acting like an insane asylum escapee, I’ll treat myself to dinner at the Italian place down the street from my apartment, a bottle of wine and all.
“I meant, yes, I’m out of sorts.” I say this robotically, concentrating on making my lips form the right sounds while my hormones are doing five-hundred-mile-per-hour laps around my nervous system in Formula One racing mode. “I haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights. I have a new neighbor who’s apparently trying to turn the rest of us in the building deaf with his music. I didn’t realize stereos could be used as torture devices.”
The tiny lines around Michael’s blue eyes crinkle charmingly. My heart palpitations are so extreme, I stand there and try not to die.
“I had a neighbor like that once.”
I can’t picture anyone inhuman enough to disturb this beautiful creature in his home, which is probably a golden castle in the clouds staffed by cherubs and unicorns. “What did you do?”
A dimple flashes in his cheek, and all my hormones abandon their mad dash around my veins and collapse into a sighing pile at Michael’s feet.
“I went over to his house, explained that he was disturbing me, and asked him to stop.”
“And that worked?”
“No, that actually made it worse. So then I beat him up.” He laughs at my shocked expression. “I’m kidding. I made a noise complaint to the police, and they took care of it.”
Because all my concentration has switched from forming words to battling the urge to lean in and sniff Michael’s neck, when I try to smile I end up weirdly baring my teeth instead.
“That’s probably what you should do,” says Michael, eyeing me warily. I’m sure he’s wondering if he’s going to need something sharp to defend himself with.
Dear Jesus, just take me. Please just kill me now.
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Overcome with the urge to slam my face over and over onto my desk, I nod like a bobblehead. “But he lives right across the hall from me, and I wouldn’t want to have to see him after that. He’d know it was me who snitched on him because I’ve already confronted him about it.”
A small, adorable crease forms between Michael’s eyebrows. “Are you worried he’ll retaliate? Is this guy some kind of thug?”
I know it’s only my imagination that makes Michael’s expression and tone of voice seem concerned, but my heart doesn’t care. It begins to beat wildly against my rib cage like it’s attempting to break out of prison.
My rabid badger smile makes a reappearance. “Well, he is a rugby player! Who knows what the guy is capable of!”
Joellen, you’re as useless as snake mittens.
But Michael seems to find truth in my ridiculous statement, because his eyes widen in alarm. “Good God, you live next to a rugby man? That’s like living next to a silverback gorilla! Definitely don’t confront him again, Joellen. Let the authorities handle it.”