Sometime before he died or she married some putz.
Evan stared at her and contemplated reaching forward and licking her stomach, dipping his tongue into her belly button. He was abnormally horny today, which was probably the result of not dating for the last six months. For years, he had avoided his feelings for Halley by marathon dating, but lately, he just couldn't even fake his way through it anymore.
Halley waved her hand back and forth in front of his face. "Hello? Did you fall back asleep? Can you fix my site today, or do you know someone we can call who can do it if you can't?"
That distracted him from studying the smooth skin of her abdomen as his ego suffered the insult. How could she even doubt he could fix it? He could fix it with one hand tied behind his back. He could fix it submerged in water. He could fix it even if Halley was sucking his cock.
Well, maybe not that one. Painful hot throbbing filled his boxers. He wouldn't be doing anything else but enjoying, if Halley ever took it upon herself to suck him.
Not that she would ever even dream of doing that with him, the man she thought of like a brother. But that didn't stop him from fantasizing a little. Right now.
"Well?"
Huh? He had forgotten what she'd asked him.
"Oh, yeah, of course I can fix it. It might take me a couple of hours to bypass all the firewalls the hackers might have erected but that won't be a big deal."
"Can you put it back exactly the way it was?"
"Not a problem." The only problem was that she needed to move away from him or he would never be able to concentrate.
Halley needed to get away from Evan. The feel of him, the sound of his voice, the sleepy morning smell that surrounded him, was driving her crazy.
Not batty like her Aunt Ginny. But wild kind of crazy. Really achy kind of crazy.
She hadn't been with a guy since that fiasco she had called a relationship with Lewis, the human plunger.
Given the heat in her Capri pants, it seemed a safe bet that two years was too long to go without a little woohoo.
"Can I borrow your phone?" She backed up slowly, one, two. There, that was better. She couldn't smell him anymore. "I want to call my office and let them know what's going on."
"Sure." His voice was already distracted as he peered at the computer screen. He started moving the mouse, clicking on things in rapid succession.
Halley was relieved to leave her problem in capable hands and retreat to his kitchen, which still had last night's dinner dishes in it. Dinner looked to have been Cheetos and a frozen burrito.
She shuddered. His eating habits were abysmal, and in the last few years she had taken to cooking for him a couple of times a week. But since she had been avoiding him, he had obviously resorted to barrel scraping.
She could cook something for him in ten minutes that was a thousand times better than a frozen burrito. A nice fluffy omelet would be ideal, she thought as she picked up the phone and dialed her office.
Nora picked up.
"Hi, it's me. How are things going there?" She held her breath waiting for the answer.
"Well." Nora hesitated.
Halley's stomach did a hokey-pokey imitation, shaking and churning. "Tell me."
"Okay. We've had sixteen calls requesting nude catering jobs. Three callers wanted to know if you could serve penis-shaped hors d'oeuvres, one thought he could order a prostitute complete with her own Cupid sex toy, and you remember Mr. Benjamin, that sweet old man whose eightieth birthday we catered last month? He wants a refund since we didn't serve nude at his party." Nora took a deep breath. "And I caught three of our servers printing fifty copies of the home page with your picture on it."
"Oh, no!" Halley sagged against the counter. She was ruined. Completely and utterly ruined. She might as well pack up and go back to the trailer park she had grown up in.
As a total failure.
Nora said in bewilderment, "Who would have thought so many people in suburban Pittsburgh want naked catering?"
That was a question for philosophers and Jerry Springer.
"Evan says he can fix it, so just try and stay calm. You're doing great." Which was more than she could say for herself since she had the urge to collapse on the kitchen floor in a fit of the screaming meemies.
"I shredded the copies the servers printed, but there's nothing to stop them from making more. You might want to reprimand them, it was"
Halley quickly cut her off. "No, that's okay." She really had no interest in which of her male employees had found it necessary to put on paper fifty copies of her naked body.
Which was not her naked body at all. Geez, that was the worst part of the whole thing. They had given her one of those figures that looked as if it was three or four different bodies welded together. Huge breasts, hourglass waist, curvy behind, and chicken legs.
Naked Catering Barbie. Complete with tray.
Besides, she had a hard time visualizing calling three men into her office and telling them to stop printing out nudie shots of her on company time with expensive office supplies. It sort of shot her advantage as their intimidating boss.
"One last thing," Nora said, her tentative voice betraying the casual words.
"What?" Halley paced back and forth in Evan's kitchen, skirting his overflowing trash can. Whatever Nora had to say, it couldn't get any worse.
She was ready.
"The church charity group called."
Oh, no. This was going to be worse.
"And?"
"They're canceling us for their five-hundred-seat event."
What would Evan do if she suddenly starting screaming "bloody hell" at the top of her lungs?
That charity dinner was five hundred times nineteen ninety-five a plate, which meant she was out a hell of a lot of money.
"They didn't even want to talk to me?" Maybe if she threw in free wine…
Nora said, "I tried to talk them out of canceling, I told them it was a hack job, but they didn't care."
She squeezed her eyes closed. "That's okay."
Her life was over, but it wasn't Nora's fault. Nora was clearly upset and Halley didn't want her to feel she was to blame. The Three Commandos were the ones to blame, and they were smarmy illusive Internet surfers, hacking their way through decent hardworking people's lives.
"I'll call you later." She hung up and ran a mental list of all the events they had coming up during the busy August and September wedding season. If even a fourth of them canceled, she was going to suffer from excess inventory, an unnecessarily large staff, and decreased income.
On a shaky sigh, she let the tears break free and roll down her cheek.
"Holy crap, you're not going to believe this." Evan came strolling into the kitchen, a grin dancing across his face.
Halley turned to hide her tears, but the smile collapsing into concern showed her he had already seen them.
He stopped dead and said, "Hey, what's wrong?"
Stupid man. What did he think was wrong? That she'd missed the JCPenney white sale?
"I have perfume in my eye."
"Perfume? In your eye?" He was coming closer to her, frowning as if he was doing some serious thinking.
"Yes. Perfume. In my eye." She bent over the sink and pretended to be rubbing around in her eye, trying to swipe away any remaining signs of her wimpy breakdown. His hands landed on her upper arms as he came up behind her.
Touching was bad. It was very, very bad. Touching meant that he was close to her and that with one little shift back, she could be flush against him, her curves melding into his hardness, his breath rushing past her ear. She could press her backside along his pants and feel him swell with arousal.
Wait a minute. He wouldn't swell with arousal. He would be shocked and horrified at her unfriendly behavior, and she would lose the best friend she'd ever had.