“Do you want me to finish that?”
Annie looked up to find Molly watching her. The T-shirt she’d been folding was still clutched in her hand. Apparently, she couldn’t let her mind wander and still work after all.
“Yes, thanks,” Annie said, handing her the shirt. “I should get started on the inventory before Jordan gets here.”
Molly had the shirt folded before Annie could even turn away. Molly was a good hire. She was sharp as a tack and willing to do anything. After only three weeks, she was already running circles around Jessica. She was also the complete opposite of Jessica. Matt hired based on looks. Everyone knew that. Jordan, however, was more interested in brains. The two high school students she’d hired—Molly and Steven—were both in the top part of their class. Molly lacked Jessica’s long blond hair and good looks, but she was a quick learner and needed no supervision. And Steven, while looking every bit the nerd that he was, had already helped Jordan set up a new inventory system that could link directly to QuickBooks and their accounts.
And to think both of them had only been there three weeks. She glanced over to where Jessica was. She was bobbing her head to the music as she restocked the coffee mugs. Annie could tell from here that she already had them out of order. Oh well. Molly would straighten them out later.
It was still ten minutes until the store opened, so she went to the back for another cup of coffee. Decaf. While her doctor had recommended that she limit her caffeine intake to one cup of coffee per day, Annie was a three- or four-cup-a-day drinker. She’d adhered to the one-cup rule on Monday and thought she’d made it through with flying colors. Apparently, Jordan thought otherwise. Tuesday morning, Jordan had brought out a Keurig and an assortment of decaf pods for her to choose from.
“What are you trying to say?” she’d asked Jordan.
“That you were a little cranky yesterday.”
“I was not.”
“You nearly made Jessica cry. And you snapped at me over the color choice for the new Fat Larry T-shirts.”
Well, yeah, there was that, she conceded. So on Tuesday, she had four cups of decaf. And a splitting headache. So yesterday, she’d had one cup of real coffee, then finished up with decaf. No headache.
“So I’m an addict,” she murmured as the coffee dripped into her cup.
“Who are you talking to?”
Annie turned, finding Jordan leaning against the office door. “What are you doing here? I thought you were coming in at noon.”
“Got here a little while ago,” Jordan said. “How’s the headache?”
Annie smiled. “None today. I had my caffeine fix earlier,” she said. “You want a cup?”
Jordan shook her head. “I’ve already got one, thanks.”
She went back into the office and Annie followed. She stopped and stared at the empty space. She looked over at Jordan.
“When did you move the sofa?”
“Had a couple of guys come get it. They just left.”
“I guess they were quiet. I didn’t hear a thing.” She took a sip of her coffee. “New one?”
“Yes. On the way.”
Annie was glad to be rid of the old one. While she didn’t mind the memories of Matt, she didn’t like that her mind went immediately to that night each and every time she looked at it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Well, I did promise I’d get rid of it,” Jordan said. “You weren’t the only one having visions when you looked at it, you know.”
Annie felt her face turn to what she assumed was a bright red. “You did not just say that!”
Jordan laughed. “What?”
Annie shook her head. “Can we rearrange the office while we’re at it? Turn it into something completely different?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
So before the guys came with the new sofa, she and Jordan moved the desk against the side wall where they would now have a view of the door leading into the store. The bookshelf was moved to where the sofa used to be. She vacuumed while Jordan hooked up the printer again.
When they came with the new sofa, Annie got out of the way and let Jordan guide them inside. It was a smaller sofa and much nicer than the old one. While the old one was a drab beige cloth, this one was smooth dark leather. She couldn’t wait to sit on it. The guys made quick work of it and Jordan tipped them both before closing the back delivery door behind them.
“Well?” Jordan asked.
Annie sank down on the sofa and nodded. “Nice. Really nice,” she said as she ran her hands across the cool leather. “It makes it look like a real office now.”
“Good. I thought you’d like it,” Jordan said.
Annie got up again. “I do. Thank you.” She walked over to her and touched Jordan’s arm, letting her fingers linger on her skin. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“Trust me. I did,” Jordan said with a smile.
Annie was aware of their closeness and knew she should move, knew she should remove her hand from Jordan’s arm. But she didn’t. Her fingers tightened of their own will as she met Jordan’s eyes. How many seconds she stood there, she didn’t know. Long enough. But when the back door opened, she took a quick, guilty step away, separating them. She was surprised by the slight blush on Jordan’s face.
“Just a head’s up,” Jessica said. “A church bus stopped out front.”
Jordan frowned. “What? Are they going to protest or something?”
Annie laughed. “I think she meant to warn us that we’re going to be overrun with customers soon.” She patted Jordan’s arm as she walked past, heading out to help Jessica and Molly with the crowd.
* * *
Jordan let out her breath when Annie left. Unconsciously, she touched her arm where Annie’s fingers had been.
“What just happened?” she whispered.
Okay, yeah, Annie liked to touch. She’d learned that weeks ago. But since when did she like to be touched?
She shook that thought away and sat down at the desk, pulling the laptop closer. Thursday was the day they did inventory and placed orders for the next week. Matt had normally placed orders once a month, but Annie had convinced her to do it weekly for T-shirts. That way, they would know which ones were good sellers and which were not. No sense in having their inventory stocked with shirts no one was buying.
Their normal Thursday routine had Jordan coming in at noon. Annie would have already finished the inventory, thanks to Steven and the new system he’d built for them. Jordan would then decide on quantity and place the orders.
She’d thrown a kink into that today by arriving early. Truth was, it was a rather hot day and instead of being outside, she had decided to head to the store. Well, that was sort of the truth. It was quiet and lonely at the house, and she found herself staring out at the bay with no desire or motivation to do anything, even though the lawn needed to be mowed. She’d also talked to her father about having a new pier built. When they came out on Sunday, he was going to take a look at it. She had offered to split the expense with him, but she doubted he would take her up on the offer.
She looked up as the door opened. She liked this new setup of the office. The desk had a view of the open area and the door. It was Annie.
“The church group didn’t stay long,” she said. “Thankfully. It was mostly kids, and they managed to make a complete mess of the T-shirts.”
“Good thing it was too early for popcorn,” she said.