Page 24 of Building Romance
I start laughing. “Mr. Jenkins is like ninety. What are you going to do? Take his cane?”
She rolls her eyes. “No. But I’m not above yelling at him. I don’t care if he’s one hundred.”
We’re all quiet for a moment as we consider who it could be. Hutch has been so obsessed with this over the past year. I feel like he’s using it as a distraction but I don’t think anything is wrong in his life.
“Why does Hutch care so much about this?” I ask, voicing my thoughts aloud.
Everyone shrugs. “I think he’s bored,” Jocelyn says.
“Bored? He’s always so busy. I think he wants to be the one that finds the answer,” Roxy suggests.
“I think Hutch is a closet true crime fan,” Carly muses.
“You all are crazy. Hutchinson is just a good boy trying to do a good deed,” Margie declares.
We all giggle.
“I’m not sure he’s all good. Didn’t he, like, get caught with his teammate’s girlfriend?” Roxy asks.
“No way. It was his teammate with his girlfriend,” I say.
Roxy’s and Jocelyn’s eyes widen.
“Damn,” Jocelyn says.
“Yeah. It was pretty fucked up. I only know that because he once mentioned it to Drew during guys’ night and Drew told me,” I say.
“Yeah, Bray said something similar,” Carly agrees.
“Anyhoo, enough about the men in our building. We need to figure out how we can get intel on McDowell’s,” Roxy says.
Everyone is silent for a moment as we each consider the best way for me to go about finding details on what this new McDowell’s will serve. I have given a lot of thought to ways to differentiate myself from them, but without knowing what they plan on doing, it’s hard to predict. McDowell’s is known for making each location unique. They aren’t a cookie-cutter type of store, so the predictability isn’t there.
“Hear me out,” Jocelyn starts and we all turn to her. “What if…you sleep with him.”
My eyes widen. “W-what?” I manage. Piper is sitting in the corner and she giggles.
Jocelyn waves her hands in a “simmer down” motion and speaks again. “Why not take the whole keep-your-enemies-closer thing all the way? There are so many great spy stories in history where women spies slept with men to get access to their secrets. So, what if you become a spy.”
Sadly, she’s not wrong about that. There are plenty of those stories on and off the big screen. I just don’t think I could do it.
“I don’t know,” I say. “That seems…I don’t think I could do it.”
She frowns. “OK. What about just seducing him a little?”
Carly starts laughing. “What does a little mean?”
“Like, turn on the Cam charm. Make him think with his dick instead of his brain. Maybe he’ll slip up and spill some secrets,” Jocelyn says.
Roxy elbows her.
“Ouch! What was that for?” Jocelyn says, glaring at her boss and friend.
“You have got to stop reading mafia romance books,” Roxy says with a roll of her eyes.
Jocelyn shrugs and pulls out her phone, typing away for a few seconds. “I mean, you have to admit. The man is hot as fuck,” she says as she turns her phone around. Roxy swipes it from her hand and whistles.
“OK, yeah, maybe we revisit the sleeping-with-him thing,” Roxy says as she looks at some photos of him.
