Page 32 of The Secret
He huffed out a laugh.
I focused my gaze on the steering wheel beneath my fingers. “Besides, I might have overstated things earlier. I probably only dislike you, say,fortypercent of the time.”
Constantine laughed again. “I’ve gone up a whole ten percent? Was it the coffee?” He grabbed the empty metal cups from the console and shook them in my direction. “Be honest. It was the coffee, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The coffee helped. But I meant what I said when I offered you this job. I really do need help, from someone I won’t need to train from scratch. And I appreciate what you did for me back there, too, pointing out the discrepancies with the order. So, um.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I know you said you don’t expect the benefit of the doubt from anyone, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. From now on.”
His expression was momentarily startled, but then his sly, mischievous smile was back.
“Oh my God. Has the apocalypse come? Tell me, Micah, is this how the end times begin?”
“Always with the jokes,” I sighed. “You’re the one with the gift for prophecy, remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Anytime you want the chaos to stop, I’m happy to pucker up again.Boss.”
“Because you thinkyoumight be my true love?” I hooted. “Also, nice job with the not-flirting, stock boy.”
He shook his head at the new nickname. “I’m a slow learner.”
“No, you’re a fast forgetter. Get out of my van, Constantine. I’ll see you Wednesday. Don’t be late.”
Constantine smiled broadly as he hopped down. “God, you really want mebad,don’t you?”
His smug little smile should not have made me want to kiss him.
“Still delusional, Ross. You should really get that checked out.”
“Stillaccurate.” He winked. “Have a good day, boss. And for what it’s worth, I think this employment thing is gonna work out just fine.”
Chapter Five
Constantine
July
This employment thing was not working outat all.
When my alarm went off at three o’clock in the fucking morning for the sixth Wednesday in a row, I nearly cried.
It had all seemed so easy at first. I mean, I’d felt like I was always workinganyway, between my shifts at the station and the landscaping work, so how bad could ten or fifteen more hours of relatively easy labor for Micah be?
Answer: very bad.
For one thing, my dumbass self hadn’t taken into account that the busy season for Ross Landscaping had barely started its upswing when I’d agreed to Micah’sproposition.Now, every day brought hours and hours of monotonous work in the hot sun, mowing lawns and spreading mulch, leaving me exhausted and frustrated and cranky.
For another thing, I hadn’t considered that getting to Micah’s to make money for a replacement car…would require me to have a car.
So far, Theo had been pretty cool about letting me borrow his Chevy, probably figuring he owed me for keeping my mouth shut about his graduation celebration,which he did. But my vague excuses about having “shifts” without specifying where—not outright lies, but pretty fucking close—were starting to wear thin, and he was getting suspicious. I hadn’t talked to my mother about itat all.
For another-nother thing? I hadn’t factored in just howfuckinghard it would be to go withoutfucking.
Between the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings, Saturday afternoons spent landscaping, and Saturday evenings spent at the station, I didn’t havetimeto drag my ass to The Hive on a Saturday night, let alone theenergy. And consequently, said ass—along with other very crucial parts of me—were feeling very, very neglected.
Which made it super lovely to spend hours and hours working next to Micah Bloom, with his big paws, and his patient smile, and the adorable little pucker between his eyebrows, and his cedar and lavender scent, and his rusty laugh that made me feel triumphant every time I caused it, and his fuckingrelentlesslyprofessional attitude… and… and… Yeah.
Not working outat all.
Because if you were thinking I’d developed a tiny crush on Micah Bloom? You’d be totally wrong. I had an enormous, humongous,soul-destroyingcrush on the man.
