Calculated Exposure (20 page)

“Ha ha.”

Jean pulled a sticky note off the cube on her desk and scribbled on it. “That’s all that’s left in my staffing budget.”

Erica took it and studied the figure. Now it was her turn to
blech
. She’d have to get another job just to afford the job. Was it worth it? What would she get out of it?

When laughter pealed through the room, she turned in her seat to observe a young woman in a rainbow clown wig becoming unhinged as she stared into a hand mirror at her greasepaint-covered face. A fellow writer sat next to her, penciling in exaggerated eyebrows in black over the stark white base.

“Circus issue,” Jean explained.

They seemed like a fun bunch to work with. The energy in the room was positive and the direction of the periodical seemed gutsy. She could get behind gutsy. Even if she didn’t find another job immediately, she had a little in savings that could hold her over, but what after that?

Move in with Curt? Yeah right.

She twisted her camera bag’s strap in her fingers and turned back to Jean. “How flexible would my hours be?”

Jean shrugged. “As flexible as you want them. You’ll schedule your own stuff. You only have to be here for meetings.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it. Do you need references or anything?”

Jean closed her eyes and shook her head. “I wouldn’t check references for an intern, so I’m not going to check ’em for you, either. I don’t really want to talk to anyone at your paper.”

“I appreciate it.”

Jean shrugged. “Take a couple of days and think about it. Let me know.”

Life decision in two days? Ha.
“Sounds do-able.” She shook Jean’s ink-stained hand before heading toward the staircase.

Do I really want to do this? Is this the best option for me?

Her phone vibrated again as she bounded down the stifling stairwell. This time she plucked it out and answered it without peeking, thinking it was probably Sharon reminding her of their shopping date.

“I’m all done,” she said.

“Done with what?” Tate asked. “Why aren’t you at that shoot today? I assigned you to an event.”

She stopped moving and pulled the phone back from her ear long enough to blow out a long sigh.
Fuck.
What now? Maybe pretend I dropped the call? No. Just make something up.
She continued to the ground level and shouldered the street door open.

“I took today off.”
There. Truth.

“Not through me, you didn’t.”

“Sorry. I’m out of town. Won’t be back until tomorrow. Maybe you can get a stringer.”

“Too late for that. I’m here now, shooting the event myself.”

So what was his problem? “I look forward to seeing your shots in tomorrow’s edition, then. Your work isn’t represented nearly enough. Bye.”

“You wait. You’ve got a lot of nerve. You need to straighten up and act like you appreciate everything I’ve done for you.”

Now
that
made her laugh. “What have you done for me lately?”

“Who are you, Janet Jackson now?”

“No. I’m making a point here. Yeah, you gave me a job, and I’ve done it proficiently for a lot of years. I’ve put up with a lot of shit from you no one else would have.” She yanked the Jeep door open with a grunt and climbed into the driver seat. “Crazy-ass hours? Hardly any vacation time, even though on paper I earned it? You’ve treated me more like a whore as a newspaper photographer than you did when I was technically a prostitute. Sounds like a power trip to me.”

“You know what, you sound really brave right now, saying all this through the phone, but you gonna say it to my face, too? Or are you going to show up for work on Monday with your hand held out for your paycheck, toeing the line as always?”

Well, she got direct deposit so that was hardly a concern. He had a point, though. She wasn’t going to start shit at work without a back-up plan, and he knew it.

“So, where are you? What is it that you’re done doing?”

“Besides you?”

He exhaled forcefully, tinged ever so slightly with a growl. “Get your ass into work on Monday or I’ll make sure HR knows what your past extracurricular activities were.”

She didn’t have a good response for that, so she disconnected.

Chapter 15

Curt spat out a stream of expletives that could have made a computer blush, assuming the damned thing was working. His wasn’t. He’d spent thirty minutes running a remote simulation for Prizm and the goddamned machine crashed. Just grinded to a goddamned halt the moment he’d started moving money around.

“Fuck!” He pounded the desktop and picked up his cell phone. His computer wasn’t
that
old. It was more than capable of running the scheme, so he suspected the client had some sort of pushback in place designed to corrupt the machines of whoever dared try them.

“Fuckers.”

Before he could bring up the keypad on his phone, his sister Jenny’s picture appeared on the incoming call screen.

“Yeah?” He rolled his chair to the far corner of the room and fetched his laptop from his satchel. “Whatever is, I hope it’s important. I’m up to my dick in fatal errors over here.”

“Uh, okay, you shit. Listen, Da’s here.”

He shook his head.
Perhaps I didn’t hear her right.
“Say again?”

“Our father? The fat fuck? The cockroach? The–”

“Yes, love, I get the
who
, repeat the fuckin’
what
.”

“He’s here.”

“And by
here
you mean your house?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, at the current moment he’s sitting on my fuckin’ sofa waitin’ on me to fetch his tea.”

“Who let him in?”

“Who do you think?”

He closed his eyes and groaned.

“I suppose she didn’t have much choice, Curt. He kept knocking, shoutin’ at her from outside, you know? Neighbors were watchin’, reporters were out there takin’ it all in. Danny tried to go out and curse him, but Mum said it was too embarrassing, so he’s inside now.”

“When’s he leaving?”

“Uh…that, I can’t say. Looks like he’s settlin’ in for a good, long visit.”

“Give him the phone.”

“Curt–”

“Jenny, give him the fucking phone, or what else do you expect me to do from North Carolina, huh?”

“It’s not going to help. You know how he is. Makes you feel real small like no matter what you’re saying is the wrong thing and that he knows best.”

“Where’s Mum?”

“Crying in the bedroom.”

Curt took off his glasses and rubbed his eyelids. “I’d tell you to call the Guard to make him leave, but I don’t think they’re interested in doing us any favors right about now.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

He sighed. “Look, try to keep Mum in her room. I’ll get the first flight I can.”

“I know you’ll figure something out. Bye.” She ended the call.

Curt shoved his laptop back into his bag and headed for his closet as he waited for Bridget to pick up her office phone.

“Yes, Mr. Math?”

“You owe me a fucking computer.”

“Ouch. What’s wrong? You get a little boo-boo on that assignment? Should have warned you about that, but I figured it would be good training. You need to work closer with our little hacker geeks. That’s why we have them.”

He made a crude gesture she couldn’t see, but felt better for it.

“I’m going out of town for a few days. Need to handle some personal business.”

“I don’t really care, Curt. Check your email every now and then and I won’t even tell HR.”

“You owe me that much for moving up my start date.”

“Blame yourself. Learn to read words and not just numbers and you’ll get in less trouble. Ta ta.”

He growled and tossed the phone onto the bed. “Seth!” He shouted down the hall.

Seth poked his head out of his bedroom. “What happened?”

“Gotta fly home to deal with my father. I should be back by Monday, but if I’m not, can you sit in on my nine AM calc class? It’s an exam day.”

Seth nodded. “Maybe if you have time to look around while you’re there, you could find me a girl? Since you’re off the market and such.”

Curt dumped underwear and socks into his duffel bag. “Who said I was off the market?”

Seth rolled his eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“How so?”

“What would it take for you to stay still? To stop using women as little stepping-stones? You just flit from one to the next without assessing anything, without learning anything. What’s wrong with the Cuban?”

Curt huffed. “There’s not a damned thing wrong with her. She’s perfect.”

“That’s my point.”

“We’re not trying to walk down the aisle tomorrow, Seth. We’re just letting things unfold as they will.” It sounded ridiculous, even to him. He knew how Erica made him feel when she was around. It was probably the same way Grant felt when he was around Carla. Certainly explained the dumb grin on his face.

Seth threw up his hands. “I don’t understand this world. They just fall into your lap and you brush them off. I can’t even get a woman to dance with me at the clubs,
forget
about a one-night-stand. And you go through women like they’re tissues. Just blow your nose once, drop in trash.”

Curt stared at his friend. He hadn’t known how sensitive the guy was about his social inadequacies. “Are you alright, Seth? Feeling okay?”

“You tell me. Why Grant? Why you? Why not me?”

Curt dropped a couple of t-shirts into his bag and sighed. He didn’t know the answer to that. He knew, deep down inside, that of the two of them, Seth was the far better person. He didn’t have to try to be kind, because he’d been programmed that way. He may have lacked Grant’s finesse and Curt’s charm, but the guy had a lot going for him. Just maybe not the stuff women looked for.

He was the poor, idiosyncratic geek who lived in the friend zone. The women he fell too-easily in love with kept his number on hand in case they needed a ride home after a date gone wrong. Or if something went wrong with their cars, they’d call him. Curt had witnessed it time and time again. He’d answer the apartment phone.

“Is Seth there?” some woman would ask.

Curt would hand off the phone, and watch Seth’s hopeful expression droop in seconds.

“Gotta go give her car a jump,” he’d say, already reaching for his keys.

Curt pushed his glasses up and blew out a breath. “I don’t know, big guy, but Sharon would probably tell you there’s someone for everyone.” Hadn’t he found someone?

“The mail order bride system suddenly holds a lot of appeal for me.”

“Yeah, you go ahead and do that, bud.” Curt zipped his bag and pulled a hoodie sweatshirt down from a hanger before flipping off the lightswitch. “Then hold her in quarantine for six months until you’re sure she’s not a carrier for plague.”

Seth followed him to the kitchen and watched him gather his keys and wallet. “I’d rather die of plague than die alone healthy.”

“Fuck, you’re morbid. I didn’t know you were that lonely.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Bah. I’m a romantic. I have feelings. I guess women don’t like that.”

Curt tossed his keys from hand to hand and studied his old friend’s expression. Maybe he was right. He’d certainly never expressed any to any woman. But he’d never gone beyond one date before now, either. Hardly a representative sampling. Who the fuck knew what women wanted? Not him. Up until lately, he hadn’t cared.

* * * *

When Erica and Sharon made it back to Curt and Seth’s house later after a long day of shopping–also known as torture to Erica–the house was dark, save for one upstairs light, and Curt’s car was missing.

The door was open and they let themselves in.

“Hey, Seth?” Sharon called up the stairs.

“Hey, Shar.”

“Where’s Curt, honey?”

“Uh.”

Erica and Sharon shared a look. That didn’t sound like a good
Uh
.

Moments later, he pounded down the stairs, turning on lights as he traveled. “Uh.” He looked from one woman to the other and scratched his head.

“Curt knew I was coming back. Where’d he go?” Erica asked. She set her shopping bags at her feet and ferreted her phone from her purse. She scrolled through the address book and pulled up Curt’s mobile number.

“Uh.”

Sharon gave his arm a light cuffing. “Spit it out, Seth.”

“He left a couple of hours ago. He had to fly home to deal with some shit.”

He flew home?
Erica ground her teeth.

“And he didn’t know he’d be leaving this morning before Erica left?” Sharon asked.

He put his hands up and his eyes went wide. “Whoa, whoa. Don’t shoot the letter carrier.”

Erica squinted at him.
Huh
?

Sharon tapped her arm. “He’s bad at that. Seth, when’s he coming back?”

“He hoped by Monday. Wanted me to sit in on his class just in case.”

Well then. Now you know where you stand. Not like you had plans or anything.

Erica wrapped her fingers through the handles of her shopping bags and heaved them up. “I guess I’ll head home. I’m sure my boss has me on the calendar to shoot something tomorrow morning, anyway.”

Seth’s expression softened. “You can hang out if you want. Might get bored, though. Every other woman does.”

Sharon crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. “Seth, if you get your visa in order, I will personally play matchmaker for you.”

Erica grinned as she walked toward the door, in spite of how pissed she was. These people were a hoot.

“You will?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll even give you a makeover.”

As she turned the doorknob, Erica laughed. Curt may have been an asshole, but at least he had good taste in friends.

“Erica!” Sharon called down the hall before Erica managed a step outside.

“Yeah?”

“Come hang with me next weekend. I’m coordinating a party. It’s going to be lame.”

“Who could say no to
that
?”

“I’ll call ya. And remember what I said about planting seeds.”

Erica fingered her car keys in her pocket and let out a little scoff. “I think the seeds have rotted,
princesa
.”