meetings so I had to work on it whenever I could find spare time. Plus, I’m sure you had your hands full last night. The last thing you probably wanted was to work on budgets and revenue forecasts.”
Confusion flashed on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” I muttered. “So why does Ian want another pass at the numbers?”
He sighed. “Well, you could have had me do the work, or at least let me review yours before you uploaded it. Some of your assumptions are too conservative, and some of your revenue projections are way too optimistic. You need to clear your calendar so we can get this finished by the deadline.”
“Fine.” I declined all my day’s meetings on my phone calendar. “Let’s start now. Maybe if we finish early you can still make it to your treasured golf game with your uncle,” I said flatly.
He rolled his eyes. “And I’ll book a conference room for the whole day just in case. The small one at the end of the hall is usually free.” It was the freezing conference room that had a wobbly table and was littered with broken chairs. One look at my facial reaction and he burst into laughter. “Look, it’s not THAT bad. At least it’s available. And there’s no Asher to deal with there.”
Well, we both hated Asher. At least we had that in common.
We walked to the always-empty Ernest Cline conference room in silence. The motion-sensor light took a few extra seconds to register our presence. When the overhead fluorescents flicked on, we could see that some evil bastard had uncapped all the dry-erase markers and scattered them on the floor, removed the rickety table, and left a graveyard of broken chairs in our midst.
Nolan inspected our seating options and wheeled a seemingly normal chair over to me. “Okay, here’s one of the least messed-up ones I could find.” I sat, and it hissed as I slowly shrank down to the shortest setting. “Oh, I guess the height adjustment mechanism is broken,” he said, stating the obvious.
When I stood, the seat hissed again, moving the seat back up to the original position.
Nolan pushed another chair in my direction. This one also looked “normal” but didn’t swivel, which was fine, given the alternatives.
For himself, he sat in one that was stained with black, brown, and white splotches. I never understood how seats could get that dirty from everyday work use. Maybe they got that way from after-hours recreational use? Gross, Melody, don’t even go there. Mind out of gutter, please.
“Shit, we need a table.” Nolan disappeared and came back a minute later with a small circular metal bistro table that he stole from the kitchen.
Asher messaged me as Nolan propped open the door. Just saw your ex-boo N in the hallway and grilled him about that hot girl. She was a drunk hot mess when she arrived and he put her in a cab. He also said she was boring??? Idk who cares?
I couldn’t fight the smile forming on my lips.
Nolan cared.
Holding the heavy tabletop with both hands, Nolan shimmied through the door like he was holding a very large steering wheel. It was the first time I had the opportunity to take in all of his tall, athletic physique. He breathed heavily as he placed the table in the middle of the room, and I wanted so badly to push away the swath of his hair that fell onto his tortoiseshell frames. Did he notice my gaze when I followed the outline of his shoulders and chest as they strained against his button-down fitted shirt? No, no, no, Melody. It’s Nolan Fucking MacKenzie. I distracted myself by pulling my laptop from my computer bag and signing in to the network. My cheeks prickled with heat, even though the room was meat-locker cold.
Remember, he’s your intern. “Okay, let’s get started,” I said in a clipped, businesslike tone.
He unbuttoned his shirt a little. “That was some good strength training.”
My eyes stared at where his fingers had just been.
“What?” he asked, noticing my intense interest in his upper-chest area.
My cheeks flushed with heat. “What? Oh, I was just . . . thinking I liked your shirt. Big fan of plaid.” Oh god. “It’s a good cut, too.” I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s not too baggy.”
Over our opened laptops, I peeked up from the screen and caught Nolan watching me. His mouth curved upward as he looked back down and typed.