Page 41 of The Fix Up

“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”

He grinned and leaned further back into the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. “One of these days, we’ll have to have aStar Warsmarathon.”

Holly bit her lip, not sure whether the idea thrilled her or just created more potential for temptation. She was saved from deciding when he swung the subject back to the task at hand.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to digress from the purpose of our meeting. Where were we?”

“You asked me for public speaking tips,” Holly reminded him. “Here’s one: get your butt out of the chair.”

He grinned and straightened up in his seat, but didn’t stand. “You mean I can’t deliver a sales presentation from a seated position?”

“You order drive-thru tacos from a seated position. You watch bad sci-fi from a seated position. You use the bathroom in a seated position.”

“Hey, I’m a guy?—”

“My point is that you need to establish a commanding presence right off the bat.” She moved across the front of the room, keeping her posture straight in illustration. “You have your height, Ben. Use it to your advantage. Take charge of the room right from the start.”

Looking bemused, he stood up. Holly stared up at him, startled by the sheer size of him again.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much.” She took a step back, needing to put a little space between them. “Okay, that’s a starting point. So tell me about this sales presentation. What are you going to be discussing?”

“Substrate-level phosphorylation in the absence of a respiratory electron transport chain.”

She stared at him. “Was that in English?”

Ben shoved his glasses up on his nose. “I might have to dial it back a little for the intended audience.”

“Unless your intended audience is comprised of nuclear physicists, I’d say that’s an accurate assessment.”

“The audience is a team of executives from Kleinberger. Some of the same guys you met the other night.”

“Aren’t they a brewing company?”

“Yep. Second largest craft brewery in the nation, and we’re trying to sell them some top-of-the-line fermentation equipment we’ve engineered and manufactured. It’s going to revolutionize their whole process.”

“So—beer? You’ll be talking about beer?”

“In a roundabout way, I guess so.”

“Well, there’s a topic you know and love. Why don’t you start there?”

“Maybe. But I also need to discuss the engineering aspect of things.”

Ben shoved his hands in his pockets, but Holly shook her head. “Nope, no slouching, no sitting, no hands in pockets. You’re in a boardroom, not a video arcade.”

“That’s unfortunate. I’d be a lot more excited about this if I got to play Frogger with the audience.” His face brightened suddenly, and Holly thought for the hundredth time how attractive he was when he smiled for real. Then he pulled his hands out of his pockets and held up a jump drive. “I almost forgot, I have a PowerPoint deck.”

“Perfect! Let’s take a look at it.” She held out her hand, and he dropped the little device into her palm. It was warm from his body heat, and she had the ridiculous urge to press the little electronic gadget to her cheek just to feel something he’d kept snugged up against his thigh.

She ordered herself to stop thinking about Ben’s crotch and start thinking about his presentation. “When did you put this together?”

“About an hour after my dad came into my office and asked me to do this. It’s probably a little rough.”

Holly dropped into a chair at the conference table and shoved the jump drive into the slot on the boardroom laptop. She waited as the computer brought up a list of files. There was only one to display. “Is this it? Kleinberger Sales Presentation.”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

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