Page 23 of It's Going to Be a Chrome Christmas
“No,” Trixie grudgingly admitted. “I guess the biggest condition is that no one here can learn about us until we’re ready for them to. Jeff knows, by the way,” she added quickly.
“I figured that part out when he told me to treat you like a princess.”
She giggled. “I went through the standard Disney princess phase. Jeff was my knight in shining armor for Halloween.”
“I will require photographic evidence of this event.”
She moaned low. “I destroyed them all.”
“Liar.”
“I did,” she insisted, trying hard to keep a straight face. “Burned every last one of them so they could never be held against me.”
“Against you? Honey, I mean to use them against Jeff.”
God, he could spend the rest of his life just listening to her laugh. It was like a birdsong, relaxing and peaceful. And entirely addictive. “In that case, I might have saved one or two from the flames of damnation.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “That’s my good girl.”
Chapter
Five
Eventually, they separated and decided that they needed to start talking business rather than personal. Cayden moved to the other side of Trix’s desk. She wasn’t sure she liked the space between them, but knew they’d never get anything done without it there.
She had to admit, in the four hours he’d been working in her office while she’d been downstairs in the bay, he’d gotten a lot of work done. He’d even hand-drawn a floor plan of her entire building as well as the property layout outside. For a guy who’d only just started, he had a pretty good eye. There were one or two places she was genuinely shocked he knew about. She thoughtshewas the only one who knew about them, and that was because of her history with the building.
He pointed out camera blind spots as well as the building’s point of entry weaknesses. Doors were easily reinforced. He pointed out to her that people rarely think about fortifying the walls too because it’s engrained into their heads that people can’t walk through walls.
He informed her that he planned to research security companies for her with the level of expertise he wanted for her.“It’ll be interesting working with a security company instead of against them,” he said with a chuckle.
They fell into an easy routine throughout the week. Trixie would work down in the bay until lunch time, giving Cayden access to her computer and office space to spread out. Then they would eat lunch in her office. Trixie had a standing order with the deli down the street, who delivered sandwiches, potato salad, coleslaw, and chips each day for the employees’ lunch hour. She would grab each of them a plate and then journey up to her office to eat with him.
Trixie almost changed her mind about sleeping with him after learning on Tuesday that Cayden didn’t like pickles. Almost. His wickedly talented tongue changed her mind, and it had nothing to do with his lame excuse as towhyhe didn’t like pickles.
“If I want to eat a cucumber, I’ll eat a damn cucumber. You can’t put juice on it, give it a different name, and expect me to eat it.”
She also discovered he could draw. Like really well,enviouslywell. She could barely make a straight line. On one of the deli’s napkins, he gave her a sketch of her own face in blue ink. It was breathtaking. He’d even made her drawn eyes sparkle. Trixie was careful to keep it safe until she was able to laminate it later that afternoon.
Each afternoon they would go over his plans. He took her on several field trips and even on a journey through her air ducts. From the vent above Joey’s office, they made ghost noises until Trixie’s assistant went running, terrified, out of the room. He had yet to forgive them and demanded that Trixie replace the underwear he claimed to have soiled.
Trixie couldn’t believe how easy it was to be with Cayden. By Thursday, they had three consultation appointments scheduled with different security companies for the following week.Cayden told her his weekend homework was to study each company until he knew their tactics by heart and then try to stump them the following week.
She was crazy enough to be looking forward to seeing that.
No matter what each of them was doing come five-thirty, they made sure to find each other to say goodnight. A part of her felt like she was back in high school, having to chase her boyfriend down to get a kiss before his dad picked him up. Mind, her boyfriend was exceedingly hot and smart, not to mention cocky, but also extremely sweet and generous. She’d seen him talking with multiple employees throughout the week, getting to know each one. He still hung in the back during the staff meetings, and always seemed to be walking in or out of the room with a different person. She did not like the way Victoria and Trinity seemed to giggle when he was around.
On Friday, Terrance called out sick. Trixie was in the process of trying to find a way to split his schedule amongst the rest of the mechanics, including herself, when Cayden volunteered to fill in. She was nervous at first, unsure if his skills were as good as he claimed.
She should have known they’d be better. He switched out a battery, changed the oil, and completed a tire rotation test faster than she had ever seen Jeff do in her twenty years of working with him. Then he had the nerve to smile at her and say, “Told you so.”
Cocky bastard.
He finished Terrance’s entire day’s schedule by the lunch hour. So, he helped Jeff, Will, and Gary with theirs so they could get out of there early to enjoy the weekend.
Trixie suspected he just wanted them gone so the two of them could make out like teenagers in her office until Greg came to pick him up. It was a trade she was willing to make.
He gave her his cell phone number and, with a girly “Call me”, left her on her own for the weekend.
