Page 44 of All I Need

I suck in a breath at the sound of her voice and the way she’s thinking of me.

“I told him it was here. He’s on his way,” Grayson says.

I take a few seconds so it doesn’t look like I was standing beside the door eavesdropping before walking into the breakroom.

My eyes immediately find Ellie’s and I wink, not being able to help myself. I want the right to march over and kiss her.

She doesn’t even blush, just smiles widely and takes a huge bite of her sandwich like she knew I was there the entire time. It makes me chuckle and shake my head.

“Head’s up!” Grayson hollers moments before a sub flies through the air. I catch it easily and walk over to the fridge we keep stocked with drinks and grab a soda then I grab a bag of chips from the box and settle in next to Linda, across from Ellie, and begin eating.

“This guy knows how to make a good sandwich, huh?”

I smile, nod, and take a bite of my number ten.

“So how are you liking it here?”

“It’s been a good morning. Linda’s showed me that she basically runs everything and there’s no way that you will possibly survive without her.”

“True story. You up to the task?”

“Of filling her shoes? No way.”

“Oh.” I can’t help the disappointment that I hear in my voice. I really thought she’d accept my offer for the job. My eyes dart to Grayson who’s pretending not to be relaying everything he’s hearing to his mom. His hands are moving furiously over his phone but since the only way he communicates with his friends is through snapchat, the only person he texts besides me is his mom. He’s as bad as Miss Polly.

He looks up at me and smirks as he polishes off the last of his first sandwich before unwrapping another. Man, teen boys eat a ton of food.

“It’s okay. I get it,” I finally tell her when I finally swallow down the chunk of bread and meat that seemed to be lodged in my throat.

“Huh?” she asks, head tilted to the side as she studies me with her eyebrows furrowed.

“I get it. I told you there’d be no hard feelings if you didn’t want to take the job and I meant it.”

You could hear a pin drop in the small break room as Ellie stares at me, a look covering her face that I can’t quite place. Probably because I don’t know her all that well at all.

“You misunderstood me,” she says. Her hand reaches out as though she’s going to take my hand in hers but then she pulls back as if she thinks better of it. She clears her throat and sits up taller in her chair. “I, um, didn’t mean that I didn’t want to take the job. I do, actually.”

“You do?” Damn if my voice doesn’t sound hopeful. I need to rein this in, especially if she’s now going to be my employee. It’s like the triple threat of reasons not to pursue her. She’s basically a runaway bride. We’ve only known each other a short amount of time. She’s now my employee.

“Duh,” she teases. “I mean, there’s no way that I’ll be able to replace Linda but I can handle the work and I like the people here,” she pauses to look around to the rest of the staff, flashing a bright smile their way. “Plus, what else am I going to do with my time? Bug Miss Polly all day long?”

“I doubt if you’d be bugging her,” I murmur.

“You rescinding your offer?”

“What? No. I just meant I doubt anyone would think you spending time with them would be a bother.”

She grins and bites her lip. She looks at Linda quickly but my eyes don’t leave hers and the words she says next make the smile on my face grow. I’m sure I look ridiculous. In fact, I think I see Grayson raise his phone and take a picture in my direction but I can’t bring it in me to care.

“Well then, it looks like you’re stuck with me for a while.”

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