Tracing the lines of the employee names, I ran my finger down the page, muttering through last names until the one I wanted stood out in stark relief.
“Cummings, Georgia.” I slid it across the page in some kind of slow-motion daydream until the other column sealed my fate in undeniable bold text.
TAPRoseNEXT.
Some Kind of Wonderful.
Gary clicked to the next PowerPoint slide, stating something about the cost effectiveness of blah blah blah… Who knows what he was talking about by that point? We’d been in the meeting for over two hours, and I was seconds away from losing my cool.
My stomach growled its irritation.
I glanced at my watch and noted it was five minutes past three, which meant it was five minutes past my daily scheduled sugar fix. I had a Greek yogurt and a leftover piece of cherry cheesecake sitting inside the break room fridge with my name on it.
Conclusion: Someone needed to end this or I was going to end Gary.
It was Thursday afternoon, and it’d been five whole days since I’d had any real private interaction with Kline. We’d texted a lot, snuck a few minutes to chat and say hello here and there, and even had lunch together twice, but he’d been unbelievably swamped with work and activities and I was still one hundred percent determined to keep a professional relationship in the office. The combination of all that crap had put the kibosh on substantial alone time. And let me tell you, the memory of last weekend had my anticipation riding at an all-time high.
Gary plodded over to his laptop, tapping around on the keys. The man moved like a turtle. He was a genius when it came to numbers, but a moron when it came to social cues. While everyone in the room was moments away from falling face first into a coma, he appeared to think we had all the time in the world to discuss more goddamn numbers.
I was numbered the fuck out.
“And if you’ll just give me a minute here,” he mouth-breathed, licking his lips and clicking away. “I’ll pull up another spreadsheet that documents how effective we’ve been in narrowing down our target ratios for the last financial quarter.”
Jesus Christ in a peach tree.
My stomach roared its impatience. Hunger pangs. Crazy, loud hunger pangs. It’s a mystery no one else heard it over Gary’s droning.
The flash of a text notification caught my eye.
Kline: Was that your stomach, Cummings?
Okay. Obviously, someone heard them.
The handsome bastard was sitting beside me. Honestly, I had no idea why he was subjecting himself to this meeting. It was solely for my marketing team. I glanced at Kline out of the corner of my eye, scratching the side of my face with my middle finger. His body jerked noticeably with the effort to conceal his laugh.
Me: It’s 3:05pm, Brooks.
Kline: Ah, right. Georgie’s snack time. What was I thinking?
Me: I don’t know, but if you don’t end this soon, I will murder Gary with my pen.
Fighting a smile, he subtly nodded his head in understanding as he set his phone down on the table. My eyes trailed to his forearms—sleeves rolled up, hard muscles and thick veins on display. To quote Uncle Jesse, Have mercy. If I hadn’t been so damn hungry, I’d have happily sat through this tedious meeting just to gawk at those glorious arms. They were a beacon of muscly man delight.
Gary chuckled, seemingly entertained by himself. His monotone voice penetrated my daydreams about Kline’s forearms, officially popping my Big-dicked Brooks fantasy bubble.
I tapped my pen against my notepad. Shut Gary up. Now.
Kline knew it was a warning. He flashed a secret grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. God, his eyes, they were this flawless shade of blue—so bright, so vibrant. Montana-sky blue.
I’d started to make a game out of nicknaming Kline’s eyes. Those ever-changing blue retinas could be Montana-sky blue one day or, like today, M&M’s blue. But that probably had more to do with the starvation setting in than anything else.
Mmmmmmm, M&M’s. I’d have devoured a bag of that candy-coated chocolate goodness.
“Fantastic work, Gary,” Kline interrupted moments later. “I think we can all agree we’ve gained valuable information on Brooks Media’s projections for the fiscal year.”
Everyone in the room nodded, agreeing far too enthusiastically.
I knew I wasn’t the only one dying a slow death with each PowerPoint GoodTime Gary put on the projection screen.
Gary started to respond, but Kline stood up from his chair. “Go ahead and send the materials out to the rest of the team. That way all departments within Brooks Media can see how they’ve contributed to another fruitful quarter.”
“Oh, okay, but—”