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“Okay… Well, then, thanks.” I clear my throat and re-cross my legs. “Shopper Sharks.”
“Right. Shopper Sharks.”
“They’re one of our Gold Package clients, so they’re supposed to have an optimized, done-for-you email marketing sequence and maximized search visibility on Google. Sorry if this is stuff you already know. I just know you’re sort of new…”
“New?” He grunts, still with that troubled look. “I—ah hem.” He shakes his head a bit like he’s trying to clear it.
He’s been dazed like this since I opened the door.
My inner goddess is doing a tap dance.
It worked.
I still have it. Whatever mojo I had back when I used to date. It’s not gone. For a second, back in that room, when I stared at my luggage and saw all that black, doubts started to pull me under. I thought I’d become some boring, forever-single woman who would die alone.
But when I opened the door, and Jack’s jaw dropped, life sparked deep inside of me.
I felt beautiful.
That glow propelled me here, and now I’m trying to keep that lit-up feeling under control.
Here at the table, I have to remain professional.
“I’ve been with Buzzy almost a year, Hazel,” Jack says. He pulls his laptop out of his computer bag and opens it beside the plate he heaped with appetizers.
“Oh, I know. It’s just that there’s so much that we do. It can be hard to get it all straight.”
“It’s not hard for you, given how you just listed all that stuff like you were reciting the alphabet.” He grins. “You know, when I was a kid, this dude who lived down the road could sing the alphabet backward. How’s that for a cool party trick? I tried to learn it, but I could never get past O-N-M-L. That part always gets me.”
“K-J,” I supply. Then I glance at him over my laptop. “Maybe we should focus.”
“K-J! Man, that’s right. Quick, too. You must have a lot of neurons firing up there.”
I type for a minute, to pull up a spreadsheet.
“How long have you been doing this, anyway?” he asks. He picks up his ice water and takes a sip.
His Adam’s apple bobs. It takes all of my effort not to look up to his lips. I don’t want to remember how it felt when he stepped in close on my bungalow’s front stoop. When we whispered to each other…
“I’m not good at this,” I’d said.
“I think you’re perfect.”
I remember so well the feel of his breath on my sensitive lips when he said those words.
I was so nervous. He was so confident.
Stop.
Now I’m the one shaking my head slightly. “What—with the company? Er, six years or so…”
“Always a Sales Lead?”
“Oh, no way. I started at the bottom and stayed there for a while, doing the grunt work.”
“No wonder you know the inner workings so well. But—here’s something to consider. Sometimes, a car salesperson doesn’t have to know the nuts and bolts of how an engine fires. We deal with people, Hazel.”
A frustrated sigh escapes my lips. I push back my hair. “You know what’s wrong with that approach? People are a big mystery. They change their minds all the time. Nothing’s ever certain.”
