Not the fucking point!
My big-brother blood boils and, if Gabe weren’t basically my other half, I might act on my urge to punch him in the fucking jaw. I love the guy, but he should know better when it comes to the Hawke girls.
“Still, you’re practically family, and they will always be my baby sisters, so, just stop.”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine,” he relents, standing and stretching out, the tips of his fingers almost hitting the ceiling. “You ready to get outta here for the day?”
“No, I asked Byron to try to get ahold of Nora. I want to talk to her and make sure nothing else is going on. Her sister seems to genuinely think she wouldn’t be here unless it was because of some sort of outside forces.”
Gabe looks concerned for the first time since he entered my office.
“You think Byron missed something in the interview?”
“I doubt it,” I reply, shaking my head, “but I have to ask, just to ease my own mind.”
He shrugs. “All right, just let me know when you’re ready to bail.” He disappears out the door, tossing a half-wave over his shoulder before closing it behind him.
I return to the paperwork on my desk and try to lose myself in the numbers and contracts in front of me. At least my dick has finally calmed down.
My reaction to Danika unnerves me yet has me considering things I haven’t thought about in a very fucking long time. If I spend any more time thinking about her, I won’t get anything done today. I try my best to push her to the back of my mind.
After an hour of phone calls and staring at the tiny print in these one hundred-page contracts, my head pounds and my eyes are starting to burn.
A soft knock at the door finally breaks the concentration I managed to find. I look up.
“Come in.” I drop the papers in my hand onto the pile accumulating on my desk and decide that, no matter what, I’ll head home as soon as whoever this is leaves. I am fucking exhausted.
Nora appears, barely popping her head into the cracked door. “Sir? Byron called and said you wanted to see me?”
Sir. Christ. I can’t be more than ten years older than her and she’s calling me sir?
“Yes, hello, Nora. Please, come in.”
She pushes the door open and steps in, all five foot three inches, one hundred pounds of her, timidly making her way to my desk. The sisters must really take after different parents, because I would have never known they are related based on meeting them. They have the same blue eyes and blonde hair, but where Danika was all confidence and legs, Nora is petite and carries herself more like someone walking the plank. “Um, am I in trouble, sir?”
Shit. Of course she thinks she’s in trouble. I must have scared the crap out of her, asking for this meeting.
“Oh, shit, no! Come, sit, please…and for the love of God, stop calling me ‘sir.’”
She hesitates briefly before slowly lowering herself into the leather chair across from me. I can sense her nerves. She’s barely able to make eye contact with me and her leg is bouncing up and down in an anxious rhythm.
“Ms. Eriksson, please, you aren’t in any trouble. It’s just, I received a visit from your sister earlier today and wanted to discuss it with you.”
She closes her eyes and curses before shifting forward to the edge of her chair. “Oh God, what did she do? What did she say? Shit…” She drops her face into her hands.
Her reaction shouldn’t be funny, as she’s clearly distressed, but after my encounter with Danika today, I understand her concern. I bark out a laugh as I lean forward in my chair. “Yes, well, she certainly is…opinionated, isn’t she?”
Her head snaps up and her eyes meet mine. She frowns. “That’s a nice way to say it, sir. She tends to be a little…overzealous at times.” She offers me an apologetic smile.
There’s the sir, again.
I don’t correct her, because it doesn’t really matter, and she clearly has bigger concerns at the moment than trying to stroke my ego by not making me feel so fucking old.
When did thirty become “sir” territory, anyway? I understand being respectful to your elders. As children, my parents always made us call people “sir” or “ma’am,” but in this situation, it just makes me wonder what happened to the last ten years of my life to suddenly make me an “elder” without me even realizing it.
Christ, I wonder how old Danika is and if she saw me the same way Nora does. At least she didn’t call me “sir,” although I’m sure she had a few choice names for me in her head when she stormed out of here.
Nora shifts in her chair, and I realize an uncomfortable silence has settled over the room. You aren’t making this any easier on her by daydreaming about Danika instead of just telling her what’s up.