Dan cut me off. “I still need to know when you’re heading out of town, Riley. You know that’s the policy. This isn’t acceptable.”
“I know,” I rushed to appease him. “I know, and I’m sorry. I wish I could come in tomorrow.”
“Where did you say you are?”
“Um, somewhere in Connecticut. I’m not really sure where.”
“That’s not so far away. Can’t you just drive back tonight?”
No way was I asking Xavier to drive me all the way back to New York for anything other than a real emergency. It didn’t matter how badly I wanted to please Dan. That would be a real bitch move. I dropped my voice and mumbled into the phone. “I don’t have my own car here.”
Dan let out a sharp sigh. “All right. Make sure you let me know the next time you’re leaving town.”
“I will,” I promised. “I’ll write it on the list, and I’ll tell you in person.”
The line went silent. I checked the screen to make sure he really had hung up, then put my phone back down on the bedside table. I could feel Xavier’s eyes on me, boring into the back of my head. And I could hear his words from earlier echoing in my brain. We’d only known each other for a short time, but Xavier’s assertiveness was hard to miss.
I slowly turned and faced the man waiting for my attention. He stood in the bedroom doorway, his arms folded across his chest. “That was your boss?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he want?” he casually asked.
Xavier had definitely heard part of my conversation, if not the whole thing. He must have just been curious to see what I was going to say, but I wasn’t in the mood to be tested. “He wanted to know if I could come into work tomorrow morning.”
“And you told him ‘no,’ then he said, ‘all right, thanks,’ and the conversation ended?”
My back stiffened a bit. There was an aggressive tone to his voice that was totally unnecessary. Xavier knew the conversation was a tense one. He’d just stood behind me and eavesdropped on over half of it.
“Yeah,” I fibbed, my voice tart at being cornered.
Xavier gave the slightest shake of his head. “It didn’t sound like that.”
“Then why are you asking me?” I huffed. “What are you, the phone call police?”
He snorted. “Your phone was turned up pretty loud. I couldn’t pick out your manager’s exact words, but I know he wasn’t being nice to you. It sounded like he was angry at you for daring to take a couple days off.”
“Actually, he was being nice. You heard him wrong.”
Xavier looked at me like he was confused and didn’t recognize me. “Again, I heard the tone of his voice, Riley.” His nostrils flared as he dropped his arms to his sides. “The guy sounds like a Class A jerk. You don’t need to be putting up with that.”
I ground my teeth together and counted to ten. This was quickly turning into the first fight between the two of us, and it wasn’t how I envisioned spending a quiet weekend in the country. After taking a moment to calm down, I spoke. “It’s my job.”
“I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you should be a doormat.”
“A doormat?” I hissed.
Xavier held up a palm. “I know you’re not trying to be, but it sounds like this guy is treating you as just that. And it’s not right.”
I stared at Xavier, trying to figure out just what was going on here. “Why do you care?” I asked.
Hurt flashed across his face. “I care...” He gulped. “I care about what happens to you.”
The look on his face in the lake came back to me. It was all I needed to calm my anger. “Thank you. And I know how it looks, but Dan is just short-staffed right now.”
“You told him you wanted off this weekend?”
“I thought I did. I mean, I swear I put my name on the request-off list.”
Xavier fiercely shook his head. “By now, I know how seriously you take that job. You wouldn’t have forgotten to put your name on the list. The douche probably scanned the list, overlooked your name, and called it quits. He gave it the college try and is now too lazy to go back and actually look at the paper again.”
“You don’t know that,” I meekly said, though I knew that’s very well what could have happened. I searched for a more solid argument. “Dan is the one who can get me promoted.”
“But will he?”
I faltered as I looked for an answer. “I… I… Probably. Eventually.”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm. I’m going to talk to this guy.”
My knees threated to stop holding me up. “Are you joking?”
“No. He needs someone to put him in his place, someone to teach him what respect means.”
Pleasure and horror swelled in me. On one hand, it was flattering that Xavier would do such a thing for me. But it was also crazy. As a general rule, I had to say no to anything that smelled of craziness.
“Thank you,” I said, moving to Xavier. “But I have it under control.”
I pressed my hand against his chest. He skeptically peered down at me. “If he’s like this with you, he’s like this with other girls. He probably treats half of his staff this way.”
I licked my lips. “I don’t know for sure that he is.”
I noticed that Xavier said other girls and didn’t mention the part of Crumbs that was operated by men. Did he think Dan had something against girls?
Xavier started to speak, but I cut him off. “Let’s just let it go. Please? I’ll handle it.”
He begrudgingly nodded. “Fine. But let me know if he gives you any more trouble.”
I probably won’t.
Since I didn’t want to prolong the conversation, I just nodded. “Let’s get back to that awesome fire you built. As long as it’s not too hot.”
Xavier’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, it might be too hot. In fact, you might not be able to keep your clothes on around it.”
With that, he lifted me up, literally sweeping me right off my feet.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Xavier
A mess of colors flew by my window, the scene outside the limo looking like a film reel being played on repeat. I’d ridden down each block hundreds of times. There was something different happening on each of them every single day, but what those things were now, I didn’t know. It’d been hard to take note of much of anything all morning. My head was somewhere else, preoccupied with questions that I couldn’t find the answers to.
Deep in my pocket, my phone buzzed. I whipped it out and looked at the screen, but found no message there.
“Phantom buzz,” I murmured to myself.
“What’s that?” Rochelle asked from the seat across from me.
I looked up at my publicist, who, like always, sat with her back rod-straight. Add the tightly drawn back black hair and pencil skirt she often sported, and she looked like the prime stereotype of a librarian. She typed away on her tablet, briefly glancing up at me in between jabs of her fingers.