Nora Roberts - The Hollow

“Good. Listen, Layla-”

“I wasn’t sure if there was anything to type up regarding Mr. Edwards, or-”

“Okay, okay, put those down.” He settled it by taking the vase out of her hands and setting it on a table.

“They actually go over-”

“Stop. I was out of line, and I apologize.”

“You already did.”

“I’m apologizing again. I don’t want you to feel weirded out because in the office we’ve got the employer-employee thing going on, and I made a move on you. I didn’t intend… Your mouth was just there.”

“My mouth was just there?” Her tone changed from flustered to dangerously sweet. “As in on my face, under my nose, and above my chin?”

“No.” He rubbed his fingers in the center of his forehead. “Yes, but no. Your mouth was… I forgot not to do what I did, which was completely inappropriate under the circumstances. And I’m going to start pleading the Fifth in a minute, or maybe just temporary insanity.”

“You can plead whatever you want, but you may want to consider that my mouth, which was just there, wasn’t forming words like no , or stop , or get the hell away from me . Which it’s perfectly capable of doing.”

“Okay.” He said nothing for a moment. “This is very awkward.”

“Before or after we add your mother into it?”

“That moves it from awkward to farce.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Should I assume you’re not going to engage counsel and sue me for sexual harassment?”

She angled her head. “Should I assume you’re not going to fire me?”

“I’m voting yes to both questions. So we’re good here?”

“Dandy.”

She picked up the vase and carried it to the right table. “By the way, I ordered another replacement cartridge for the printer.” She slid a glance his way, lips just curved.

“Good thinking. I’ll be-” He gestured toward his office.

“And I’ll be-” She pointed to her desk.

“Okay.” He started back. “Okay,” he repeated, then looked at the supply closet. “Oh boy.”

AT FOUR FORTY-FIVE, FOX WALKED HIS LAST client of the day to the door. Outside, March was kicking thin brown leaves along the sidewalk, and a couple of kids in hoodies walked straight into the whooshing wind. Probably going up to the arcade at the bowling center, he mused. Squeeze in a couple of games before dinner.

There’d been a day he’d have walked through the wind for a couple of games of Galaxia. In fact, he thought, he’d done that last week. If that made him twelve on some level, he could live with it. Some things shouldn’t change.

He heard Layla speaking on the phone, telling the caller that Mr. O’Dell was in court tomorrow, but she could make an appointment for later in the week.

When he turned she was keying it into the computer, into the calendar, he supposed, in her efficient way. From his angle he could see her legs in the opening of the desk, the way she tapped a foot as she worked. The silver she wore at her ears glinted as she swiveled to hang up the phone, then her gaze shifted to meet his. And the muscles of his belly quivered.

He definitely wasn’t twelve on this particular level. Thank God some things did change.

It must’ve been the goofy smile on his face that had her cocking her head at him. “What?”

“Nothing. Just a little internal philosophy. Anything important on that call?”

“Not urgent. It was only regarding a partnership agreement-a couple of women writing a series of cook-books they believe are going to be bestsellers. Rachael Ray, step back, I’m told. They want to formalize their collaboration before they hit the big time. You have a busy schedule this week.”

“Then I should be able to afford Chinese for dinner, if you’re still up for it.”

“I just need to shut down for the day.”

“Go ahead. I’ll do the same. We can go up through the kitchen.”

In his office, Fox shut down his computer, shouldered his briefcase, then tried to remember exactly what state his apartment might be in.

Uh-oh. He realized he’d just hit another area at which he remained twelve.

Best not to think about it, he decided, since it was too late to do anything about it. Anyway, how bad could it be?

He walked into the kitchen where Mrs. Hawbaker kept the coffeemaker, the microwave, the dishes she’d deemed appropriate for serving clients. He knew she kept cookies in there, because he raided them routinely. And her vases, boxes of fancy teas.

Who’d stock cookies when Mrs. H deserted him? Wistfully, he turned when Layla came in.

“She buys the supplies with the proceeds from the F-word jar in my office. I tend to keep that pretty well funded. I guess she’s told you.”

“A dollar for every F-word, honor system. Since I’ve seen your jar, I’d say you’re pretty free with the F-word, and honorable about it.” He’s so sad, she thought, and it made her want to cuddle him, to stroke the messy, waving hair. “I know you’re going to miss her.”

“Maybe she’ll come back. Either way, life moves.” He opened the door to the stairway. “I might as well tell you since Mrs. H doesn’t deal with my apartment, and in fact, refuses to go up here since an unfortunate incident involving oversleeping and neglected laundry, it’s probably a mess.”

“I’ve seen messes before.”

But when she stepped up from the tidy office kitchen into Fox’s personal one, Layla understood she’d underestimated the definition of mess.

There were dishes in the sink, on the counter, and on the small table that was also covered with what appeared to be several days of newspapers. A couple boxes of cereal (did grown men actually eat Cocoa Puffs?), bags of chips, a bottle of red wine, some bottles of condiments, and an empty jug of Gatorade fought for position on the short counter beside a refrigerator all but wallpapered with sticky notes and snapshots.

There were three pairs of shoes on the floor, a battered jacket slung over one of the two kitchen chairs, and a stack of magazines towered on the other.

“Maybe you want to go away for an hour, or possibly a week, while I deal with this.”

“No. No. Is the rest this bad?”

“I don’t remember. I can go check before-”

But she was already stepping over shoes and into the living room.

It wasn’t as bad, he thought. Not really. Deciding to be proactive, he moved by her and began to grab up the debris. “I live like a pig, I know, I know. I’ve heard it all before.” He stuffed an armload of discarded clothes into the neglected hall closet.

Sheer bafflement covered her face, coated her voice. “Why don’t you hire a housekeeper, someone to come in once a week and deal with this?”

“Because they run away and never come back. Look, we’ll go out.” It wasn’t embarrassment-hey, his place-as much as fear of a lecture that had him snatching up an empty beer bottle and a nearly empty bowl of popcorn from the coffee table. “We’ll find a nice, sanitary restaurant.”

“I roomed with two girls in college. I had to call in the Hazmat team at the end of the semester.” She picked up a pair of socks from a chair before he could get there, then handed them to him. “But if there’s a clean glass I could use some of that wine.”

“I’ll put one in an autoclave.”

He grabbed more on his way back to the kitchen. Curious, Layla looked around the room, tried to see beyond the disarray. The walls were actually a very nice sagey shade of green, a warm tone that set off the wide oak trim around the windows. A gorgeous woven rug that might have been vacuumed sometime in the last decade spread across a wide-planked floor of deep, dark wood. The art on the walls was lovely-watercolors, pen-and-ink sketches, photographs. The room might’ve been dominated by a big, flat-screen TV, and a flurry of components, but there was some beautiful pottery.