Page 17 of Daddy's Little Worker
She was feeling less shaky than she had been before, but she could still see a quiver in her hands and didn’t want Dominic or Noah to see it. Would they ask anything, or just brush it off as nerves?
His eyes looked at her hands before smiling at her. “I figured Noah already said something, didn’t he?”
Frankie nodded and looked down at her hands. “Yes, he did.”
“That’s what I thought. I didn’t want to give you another lecture if you’d already heard his. Unless it goes on for a while, then I may say something,” he gently said. “But for now? You’ve already gotten one, and it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, so I didn’t want to give you another.”
“Thanks again.” She shut the door before he could say anything.
Frankie hadn’t really wanted to ask, but it was bugging her. Not many people cared where she lived, but Noah did, and she thought Dominic would have made some kind of comment. She had been anticipating it.
As she walked up to the front door, it opened right as she got within touching distance.
“Good morning.” Noah smiled, letting her in. “This door will be unlocked, so when you come in for work, you can just come in. If you walk to the left, you’ll see a room where employees can sign in to start their day.”
She looked at a small room that only had a touch screen in it. What was she supposed to do with that?
“This is where you’ll sign in for your shift. All you do is turn it on, click your name, and put in the answer to your security question. Or if you don’t like that, you can come to me, John who manages the bar, or Trent to let us know you are here and starting your shift.” He turned to her. “If you want to use this then we can set up a couple of questions it’ll go through or if you don’t, then I can let them know to be waiting for you.”
What did she want to do? Frankie didn’t really like answering questions; it always made her nervous, even if they weren’t on a test. She always freaked out when a website asked her for security questions. She always picked the wrong answer. Whatif something she put in the wrong answer, and then could never get into her account again?
“You can think about it if you want,” Noah said after several seconds. “And you can be honest in what you want. John, Trent, and I don’t mind you coming to tell us you are here for work.”
“Are you sure?” she whispered, looking up at him.
“Yes, Frankie. I am sure that none of us minds. Some people don’t have good memories, can’t come up with a question. We want to make it easy for everyone to access, so we started this,” he explained.
“I would like to tell one of you I am here.” she replied. “I’m not good at remembering answers, or I get so worried that I put the wrong answer.”
Noah cupped her face with his right hand. “Then you won’t have to worry about that here. You come and find one of us when you come in and are leaving work. We’ll make note of it.”
“Thank you. Sorry if it’s an inconvenience. We can try the question if you want,” she suggested, feeling bad that they would have another person to look after. Did they sign up for that when they got a job here?
Noah rubbed his thumb across her cheek. She had completely forgotten that he was touching her face. His touch just felt right, and she never wanted him to stop, but it was inappropriate. Was she going to tell him to stop? Absolutely not. Frankie was currently in heaven, and she didn’t want to give that up, not unless he wanted to.
“It’s not an inconvenience at all. I wouldn’t have offered if none of us wanted that. We are all perfectly fine with it. One of us will always be here, so you just need to find one of us,” Noah gently replied. “Now, come on. I’ll show you where you can put your bag. It’s a secure room. We have a camera in there to keep watch. If you want to put a lock on your cubby, you can, but it is not required.”
Noah let go of her face, and she couldn’t help but let out a sigh. When was the next time she would get some sort of contact like that again? When was the last time she had gotten physical touch like that? Frankie knew she was touch-starved. She wanted him to continue, but didn’t want to ask. It wouldn’t be appropriate, and she didn’t want to get used to being touched only for her to get fired and not have it anymore.
No. She wasn’t going to do that.
Frankie followed Noah, letting him guide her to the room beside to the kitchen. “This is where you can put your stuff. If you do decide you want to bring lunch, there is a fridge in the kitchen you can use. Just place it in there, and no one will mess with it. You can pick any locker you want in here. It’ll change daily which one you’ll get since we have so many different employees working here.”
She looked around the smaller room, taking in the two rows of smaller lockers. It reminded her of gym class.
“I was never good at gym,” she said.
“What?” Noah tilted his head to the side. “Gym?”
“Oh, sorry.” Her face turned beet red, and she looked away. “This room reminds me of the locker room in the gym where I went to school. Smaller school, so it wasn’t that big. Everyone got a locker.”
An amused look went across his face. “Well, good thing we don’t grade anything related to the gym.”
“Grade?” Her voice squeaked.
Frankie hadn’t realized she would be graded on anything. She thought she was coming to do a job, and if everything got done, she was okay. How had she missed the part about being graded?
“You aren’t going to be graded,” Noah quickly added. “I shouldn’t have said that. It would make anyone panic on their first day here.”
