Of course the whistles and catcalls ensued as soon as the sweaty, mucky men caught sight of us. I couldn’t help but notice the way Gracie put a bit more sway to her hips as we walked, throwing flirty grins at some of the guys as we passed. I rolled my eyes and grabbed her arm.
“We don’t have time for you to play Bachelorette with the construction crew. We’re going to be late.” I gave Gracie a tug and pulled her into the building behind me, cutting off the sound of the sexually laced comments that followed us. I didn’t have time to hear about how much they wanted to grab my ass.
We walked up to the receptionist and explained we were the new interns. The rather harried looking woman with a head full of frizzy grey hair and glasses entirely too big for her hawkish face pointed to the row of chairs behind us. We made ourselves comfortable as we waited until someone noticed we were there. I sat picking at my nails while Gracie scrolled through her texts. And then my day sank firmly into a big pile of suck.
“Riley,” a voice I recognized all too well said from behind me. Gracie’s head shot up and her eyes widened. My mouth thinned and I clenched my jaw so tightly I was worried I’d break a tooth.
Deep breaths. Deep, cleansing breaths.
I slowly turned around and stared into the green eyes that up until a month ago were my entire world. Another pair of eyes flashed through my mind. A pretty blue darkening with desire as they looked at me.
Not now, Riley! You are such a ho!
“Damien,” I said in a tone reserved for sales calls and door-to-door missionaries. Of course Damien had gotten the other internship spot. Because my life needed some added crap thrown at it.
Gracie’s eyes were practically bugging out of her head. She watched me as though waiting for me to go berzerker on his ass. Which wasn’t a half bad idea…
Damien smiled nervously. He looked good in his perfectly pressed khakis and green polo shirt. His wavy hair was tamed into a messy style around his forehead. His signature dark framed glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back up with his forefinger in a gesture that was at once familiar and surprisingly annoying.
“I heard you got one of the spots. Congrats. I know how much you wanted it,” Damien said and then cleared his throat. He looked at Gracie as though she would save him from the dense sea of awkwardness we were drowning in. She looked back at him blankly.
“Yep,” I let my lips pop around the word. He stood there, his hands shoved into his pockets, his teeth gnawing at his bottom lip anxiously. I should have been pleased that he was uncomfortable. Reveling in how off balanced I made him but all I felt was sad that two people who used to love each other were now barely speaking.
A woman who was all business saved us. She barely looked at us as she introduced herself as Diane Carleton. She was the assistant editor and would be showing us around. This was all told in the briefest way possible, with minimal interaction. She seemed irritated that she was the one tasked with intern duty. I got it. We were the peons at the bottom of the shit pile. And we were going to be treated accordingly.
That was fine. I appreciated knowing exactly where I stood in the grand scheme of things. No surprises. I could function in that sort of environment. It’s what I was comfortable in.
Despite the frosty greeting, I couldn’t help but get excited as we walked through the bustling newsroom full of chatter and ringing telephones. It was a hive of activity and I hummed with it. This was my scene. This is what I wanted to do with my life. This is where I belonged.
“And here are your desks. Sorry you’ve got such a crappy workspace but the building is undergoing major renovations. And since you’re on the low rung of the ladder, you get this,” Diane said, not sounding sorry at all as she indicated three desks shoved into a corner beside a large plastic sheet that separated the usable work space with a demolition zone.
It was loud. Sounds of construction and loud voices would make it virtually impossible to concentrate. But I didn’t care. I would go home covered in plaster dust every day but I was here, and that’s what mattered.
I dropped my purse on one of the desks. “How long are the renovations going to last?” I asked, wincing over the ear splitting sounds of drills and nail guns.
“Longer than you three will be here,” she replied with a patronizing smile. “I’ve put folders on your desk detailing the history of the newspaper as well as your duties and responsibilities. There is a code of ethics as well as our work policies that you will need to read and sign off on. When you’re finished bring the paperwork to me. You’ll be assigned your jobs for the week after you bring me everything.” Diane had already started walking away, leaving us.
“Well this is a lot less glamorous than I thought it would be,” Gracie pouted, sitting down in one of the office chairs with a sigh. I rubbed at my temples, feeling the beginning twinges of a headache. The noise level was painful
“Yeah, well, we just need to suck it up and remember this is the best internship at Rinard,” I reminded her. Damien had already sat down and was reading the information in his folder. Following suit, I started to thumb through the material we were expected to go over. I tried not to feel deflated, particularly as I read that most of our “duties” would involve glorified gopher tasks.
The commotion behind the plastic sheet behind us was extremely distracting. I read the same sentence at least a dozen times before I closed the notebook with a decisive bang. Coffee. I needed coffee.
Gracie wasn’t even reading. She was staring at the construction workers walking back and forth beyond her desk. She had that dreamy look on her face as she ogled the guys hefting their sledgehammers as they took down one of the partition walls. They weren’t even that cute, but it didn’t take much to get Gracie’s attention.
Then her expression changed and she lit up like a Christmas tree. Her lips spread in a smile I recognized as her signature man-eater grin. She fluffed her hair and wiggled her shoulders, causing her shirt to droop suggestively low exposing an inappropriate amount of cle**age.
“Garrett!” she squealed in delight. I turned around to find my disastrous one night stand standing behind me with some sort of power tool in his hands. He looked dirty and sweaty and obnoxiously attractive.
Well damn it all to hell.
Garrett gave Gracie a lazy smile. “Hey,” he said, the low timber of his voice doing strange things to my insides. I purposefully turned back around, hoping that he hadn’t noticed me.