Page 64 of I Saw You First

A few minutes later, Wil calls a meeting. I lean up against a huge bin of five-dollar off-brand Christmas cartoons on VHS and sip my gas station coffee. I’m saving the donut for my break.

“Ad set is prepped and ready to go.” Jimmy looks at his watch. “We’ve got a little more than two and a half hours to get this sucker signed. Hopefully, we get ourselves a Thanksgiving miracle and there aren’t any major fuckups in the packet today.” He bows his head and places his hands together in prayer. “Dear Heavenly Father, we beseech thee.”

Wil clears his throat. “Moving on.”

“Five-minute breaks today only,” Jimmy continues, and Mick from Merch makes a sad trombone noise. “Pee fast. Staggered lunches start at nine-thirty. Check the schedule at the merch desk. What you got, Rubber Soul?”

I move away from the mass display, clutching my clipboard tight to my chest (hot pink; I had to buy it myself so why be boring?). “Signs are printed, and I’ve got a chart with everyone’s assignments.” I lift the clipboard and show the color-coded table I worked so hard on Monday night at home while I watched White Christmas.

I glance at Wil, and I wish I hadn’t. His smile skims across his face like a ripple of water. He looks… proud of me. It’s rare but it’s glorious. I look away but the image of that smile is burned into my brain. We’ve got outrageous revenue goals, and I need my team to interact with every fan to make sure they buy all the things they need. And all the things they don’t need.

Do not think about that smile, I remind myself as I set the music ad without incident, then zip through movies while Collin and Kevin work on software and video games. I silently throw up a plea to the universe that they can handle this day. They’re good kids. And I realize that what I told Tamsa is true: I kind of love working here.

Once Donnie unlocks the front door and the stinky fans stream in for their Black Friday deals, time passes quickly. For the first ninety minutes, I stand at the front of my department and direct people to ad items, then refill endcaps and feature spaces from the boxes I’ve stashed on the base decks. The well-oiled media machine keeps on machining.

At 8:15, I go back to the break room and fill the gas station coffee cup from the big commercial pot that Crystal brought in, then pull the white paper bag from my locker and sit at one of the tables. Five minutes. I’m giving myself five minutes to eat this donut.

Boston cream. Solid choice. Too bad I don’t have time to savor it. Instead, I cram it into my mouth and wash down each bite with hot, muddy coffee. Still. It’s the best donut I’ve had in my life.

After four minutes, I stand up, crumple the paper bag and toss it into the trash, then swing open the door and jump in surprise when I see Wil standing on the other side.

“Hey,” he says, and how is he so calm? It’s Black Friday! “I’ve been looking for you.”

I put my hands on my hips. He’s blocking the door. “You saw my schedule. I get a five-minute break at eight-fifteen. It’s eight-nineteen, and I’m on my way back.”

“Settle down. You can have your break. And you should take longer than four minutes, FYI. I want to show you revenue numbers for the first two hours. Your department is blowing it out of the water.”

He holds out his clipboard, and I look at the dot matrix printout. We’re at nearly twenty percent of our revenue goal for the day. “Is that good?”

He nods. “Yeah, it’s good. Really good. We haven’t seen a start like this on Black Friday for years, and it’s mostly thanks to your department.”

“Great! Well, I need to get back out there.”

“Rhodes.” He puts his hand on my arm, and I feel it, that heat, the swizzle, through my body, even my hair. “Wait a second.”

I move toward him like I’m going to push him out of my way, but there’s something about the swizzle that leaches me of any strength or energy. He lifts his hand and brings it toward my face, like he’s going to stroke my cheek, and I can hardly breathe with anticipation. And then he does touch me. He swipes at the corner of my mouth with the pad of his thumb, and a rush of sensation crashes over me.

He pulls his hand away, and I look down to see a glob of custard on the tip of his thumb. I look up again, my cheeks burning.

He smiles. “Good?”

I nod, even though I’m not sure what he means. Was the donut good? Is his touch good? I have no idea. I regain enough strength and composure to put my hands against his chest—solid and firm, and seriously, when does he have time to work out?—and move him out of my way. At the end of the hallway, I turn back to see him standing in the doorway, watching me go, the thumb that had seconds ago touched my mouth, the thumb with the custard, between his own lips. He sucks the custard off, slow, deliberate, dirty.

My eyes move up to his and freeze there, and I stand, frozen, until Kevin barrels around the corner and grabs my arm.

“We have a Beck emergency! I can’t find the overstock boxes!”

I look at Wil one last time. He smiles, a small twitch at one corner of his mouth, barely noticeable.

I notice, and then I follow Kevin to the warehouse.

After I resolve the Beck emergency, I hustle out to the floor to find Jefferson A. Wilshire III standing at the media desk with Jeremy, Felix, and Jefferson A. Wilshire IV.

“Fuck,” Kevin whispers. “What is he doing here?”

My thoughts exactly. I heard that he sometimes stops by stores on Black Friday, but I’m surprised to see him this early. I’m even more surprised when he smiles at me.

“There she is!” Felix says, and I swear I hear Kevin laugh before he beelines it up to the endcap to refill Beck Odelay.