Bronagh shifted the phone and I could see Nico kiss all Georgie’s face, making her squeal in delight.
“Could have.” Alec shrugged. “Didn’t want to.”
“You are the Monday morning’ of people, Alec Slater.” Bronagh scowled.
“Wrong!” he quipped. “I’m clearly a Friday!”
“Ha!” Bronagh’s laughter taunted. “You’re the furthest from a Friday!”
“Your words,” Alec said, clutching his chest in mock pain. “They wound me.”
My friend stalked towards him, the camera showing me her legs as her hand dropped to her side.
“I’ll feckin’ wound you!”
From the angle I could now see, Nico hooked an arm around her waist, careful to avoid her belly, and drew her against his body, grinning over her head at his older brother.
“Let me go!”
“Nope,” Nico replied, popping the P. “You’re pregnant, and he needs to be alive to witness the birth of his first child.”
Bronagh almost growled.
“Fine,” she relented, “but he won’t live long enough to conceive the second.”
“That’s fair enough.”
“Hello?” I sighed. “I’m still ’ere, ye’know?”
“Is that Lana?”
Alannah.
“Shite,” Bronagh said then scrambled as she lifted the phone up so I could now see her face, and Nico’s chest as he stood behind her. I could hear Georgie, but I couldn’t see her. “Sorry, Alec came in and annoyed me.”
I grinned. “That is his talent.”
“Bite me, Ryan,” Alec hollered.
I snorted as I flipped the camera on my phone and aimed it at my body-length mirror.
“Honest opinions, Bee.”
“Holy shite, Alannah,” she whistled. “You look like a sexy librarian.”
“Shut up.” I flushed. “I don’t.”
“She’s not lying, Lana,” Nico chimed in, then Alec said, “Well, fuck me sideways, you look downright sinful.”
I flipped the screen back around to my face, but before I could call the lads on their bullshit, Bronagh said, “Your makeup is so pretty!”
My mood lightened.
“D’ye think? I tried me best with it.”
“You look beautiful.” My friend beamed.
I hesitated. “I don’t look overdone?”
“No, you’re the one interviewin’ the bloke for a job. You look like the professional woman that you are.”
“A professional hard-on inducing woman.”
Bronagh thumped Alec for me.
“I’ve to go, but I’ll stop by on me way home.”
“You better,” Bronagh warned. “We have a lot to talk about.”
I nodded. “You got it, boss.”
We said our goodbyes, and before I knew it, I was in my car and driving into town. I kept repeating what I had practiced asking over and over in my head while glancing at the applicant’s name on the front page of my papers. Morgan Allen. Then I had to repeat the name over and over so I didn’t forget it when I first met him. An hour after I set off, I was sitting inside a relatively large café, sipping on a cup of tea.
I yawned for the sixth time as I waited for Morgan Allen to show up for our interview. It didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, but I was hoping he’d show up early just to get the meeting over and done with. I was nervous. I had never interviewed someone to work for me before, so I was acting purely on instinct when it came to the questions I had prepared. I scanned through the questions I came up with Damien for an unknown amount of time, then I took out my travel sized pad and began sketching when a shadow fell over my table.
“Miss Ryan?”
I looked up from my sketchpad and audibly sucked in a breath when my eyes landed on the fine specimen before me. The man or god—he really looked like a Greek god—looked down at me with violet eyes. Logically, I knew there was no such thing as violet eyes, but this man’s iris pigmentation was so light, I couldn’t call it any other colour. I stared at him and his eyes for a long time, so long that he cleared his throat and reached up and awkwardly scratched his neck.
I felt my cheeks stain with heat.
“Y-yes?” I stammered.
“Hey.” Violet Eyes smiled, revealing straight pearly white teeth. “I’m Morgan Allen, I’m ’ere for—”
“The interview,” I finished on a nervous chuckle. “Of course, I’m so sorry for bein’ weird and starin’ at you; it’s just ... you have really bright eyes.”
“They’re freaky lookin’, right?”
“Freaky lookin’?” I repeated. “Try bloody cool. Are they contacts?”
Morgan shook his head.
“Nope, they’re me natural eye colour, believe it or not. They’re like this because there is little to no colour in me irises, so it looks like a shade of violet. It’s a genetic defect. I’m pretty much a mutant.”
“I wish I had a genetic defect that would give me violet eyes,” I mumbled. “All I got stuck with was webbed toes.”
Morgan laughed. I didn’t know if he was laughing at me or not, but I didn’t want to know.
“I got them fixed when I was little,” I rushed. “They look just like regular toes now. No more webbiness.”
“Webbiness?” Morgan quizzed, looking at me like I was that weirdly deformed dog that nobody wanted at the shelter.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling heat spread out over my entire face. “I’m makin’ an arse out of meself. Please, sit down.”
“Thanks,” Morgan said and sat down across from me. “And for the record, havin’ a little webbiness is cool. You’d outswim me if we were ever in a situation where a shark was chasin’ us and we needed to swim away. He’d get me first, and that’d be an advantage for you.”
I stared at Morgan for a couple of seconds, then burst into laughter.
“Oh, my God,” I tittered and covered my mouth with my hand. “You’re weirder than I am!”
“Hey!” He gasped, feigning offence. “I was tryin’ to make you feel better about starin’ at me and droolin’.”
“I didn’t drool!”
I wiped at my chin just to make sure, and Morgan grinned. “Gotcha.”
I tried not to smile as I glared at him. “You do realise I have the power not to give you this job, right?”
“Yeah, but then you’d have to settle for someone with regular coloured eyes, and where would be the fun in that?”
Oh, he was good.
“I suppose,” I mused. “Eye colour is everythin’ when workin’ in design.”
“You’d best snap me up quickly then ’cause I heard a bunch of other designers are hirin’ nowadays.”
I snorted.
“This is gettin’ worse and worse for you,” Morgan said with a shake of his head. “You stare, you drool, you once had webbed toes, and now you snort when you laugh? The list is never endin’ with you, huh?”
I picked up my napkin and threw it at him. He caught it before it could hit him in the face, and he had a killer grin in place as he did so. It wasn’t until that moment that I realised he was flirting with me, and I was flirting back. I didn’t mean to, but his easy-going aura relaxed me. I cleared my throat, straightened up, and tapped on my papers.
“Interview time.”
He sat up straight. “I’m ready.”
“What made you apply for me assistant job?
“Easy,” Morgan said. “I’m a huge fan of your work, and I’ve been followin’ you, or it, for a long time. When I saw that you were lookin’ for an assistant, I jumped at the chance to apply. I can draw, too, and selfishly, I was hopin’ to learn from you as well as work with you.”
My lips parted. “You want to learn from me?”
“Definitely. Your work is inspirin’.”
I felt my cheeks stain with heat.
“Thank you,” I murmured before looking back down at the questions I had prepared for him. “You’re aware of what your job will entail?”