Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2) (15 page)

“So…but…that doesn’t explain why she left
your house and tried to drown herself in wine.”

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t try
anything.” He met an accusing stare. Cassie knew every detail of
his history, and she never pulled the punches. Besides Ray, she was
the one person who kept him honest.

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Honest
Cass. Not this time. I’ve been good with her. Kept my
distance. Tried to keep her comfortable. But…she’s gun shy. She
likes me, but she’s afraid of getting hurt.”

“Smart girl,” Cassie said, turning back to
her boiling pot.

“Yeah,” Sean said dryly. “People keep saying
that.”

Chapter Nine

Krista got to work the next morning late.
She didn’t care. Her head was splitting open and her stomach was
threatening to empty its contents all over the floor.

When her phone started ringing she flinched,
“Hello?” She put her head down on her desk.

“Krista?” It was Sean.

Krista’s stomach flipped, and then gurgled
menacingly. She pulled the garbage can closer just in case. “Oh,
hey Sean. What’s up?”

“Could you come to my office, please? I need
to go over an assignment with you.”

“Sure thing. Be right there.”

She stared at the phone for a second. She’d
sounded half-alive just there. Good stuff.

She painfully walked to Sean’s office,
trying to look normal. She heard a ruckus and saw that the rest of
the team was already there, Ben included.

“Wow, Krista--had a good weekend?” Marcus
asked, moving away from her.

“Overdid it a little,” she admitted to the
crowd.

“
You look bad with a
capital ‘B’,” Ray said moving closer. He was immediately in dad
mode. “Do you feel okay?”

“I
feel
like shit, Ray, capital ‘S’.
Self-induced, though, so it’s my own fault.”

“You should have called in with the brown
bottle flu, honey!” Marcus said as Judy laughed. Everyone was in
great spirits.

“I think I will save the assignments for
tomorrow,” Sean declared with a little heat in his voice.

Krista spared a moment to feel guilty that
she was affecting his job, but only until her stomach gurgled
again. She stopped herself from moaning in misery as Ray rubbed her
back.

“I will just say that our two helpers,
Jasmine and Kate, have decided to join us. Which you all probably
know. Kate will be here in one week and Jasmine in two. They will
immediately pick up the slack.”

“Only one week?” Krista asked from the
tabletop. The cool wood felt good on her head.

“Apparently her boss was leaving in a week,
so she decided to jump on board.”

There was a cheer. Sean smirked, and then
looked at Krista. His smile faltered. “Also, in three weeks we will
be all be meeting with our clients, so I will be going over each
person’s role. They want to meet the team.”

“Geegee might just be recovered by then,”
Ben said.

Krista wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
Especially since Ben was probably right. She needed a toilet. She
was definitely going to throw up soon.

“Alright, everyone clear out. I wanna talk
to our star researcher.” Sean was looking around, but his gaze
never far from Krista’s face.

There were jokes and mirth at that. They all
thought Krista would get a talking to. She didn’t really care.
There were worse things Sean could say.

“Ray, close the door, please,” Sean said as
he moved to take the seat next to Krista. She was still lying with
her face on the table.

“I am going to take you home,” Sean said as
he rested a hand on her back.

“You know how I said I would tell you if I
did something that I didn’t want talked about, and that would make
sure my mouth stayed shut on your acting thing?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“All of yesterday goes in the vault.”

“Of course,
Pet
. You didn’t need to
say it. Of course I would keep that to myself. Even the part where
you were examining whips.”

Krista opened her eyes. Sean was worriedly
looking down at her with her favorite lopsided grin.

“Why do you call me a pet?” Krista asked,
closing her eyes.

“Not
a
pet, just…Pet. It’s, ah, an Irish
term of endearment.”

“Oh. Okay, then.” Krista smiled for 0.45
seconds. Then she grimaced. She hurt so bad.

They were back to their easy plateau. They
could probably have tried to kill each other emotionally, got
involved, married, cheated on each other, gone through a horrible
divorce, and reconvened to this common ground and trust. No matter
what happened, they always had this level.

Krista was grateful for it. She would have
cried if she wasn’t trying so hard not to throw up.

“Now,” he said standing up and putting his
hands on the sides of her arms, “time to get you home.”

“I’m sorry. Kind of a dick move to end up
like this on a Monday.”

“I think you are administering your own
punishment. Plus, you are far enough ahead that one day won’t
matter. Just don’t die on me.”

“I think I already did, and this is
hell.”

They reached the elevator as it opened. Out
popped John in his usual animated hurry.

“Hey Sean, just the per--” John noticed
Krista.

“John, I am taking Krista home. She stupidly
thought coming in with the flu was a good idea,” Sean said with an
eye roll in his voice.

John took two large steps away, bringing his
arms into his chest to ward her away like an evil spirit. “Krista,
what are you trying to do? Get everyone sick?” John had venom in
his voice.

“Sorry, I just didn’t want to let the team
down by getting behind,” Krista explained weakly. It wasn’t hard to
play it up.

“Sean, get her a laptop. She can work from
home.” He turned his attention to Krista without getting any
closer.

“But--”

“No!” John said, putting his hands up. “No
way. I need everyone healthy!” The elevator opened and John stepped
further away so Sean could escort Krista in. Since he wanted to
talk to Sean, logic said he would get on with them. Instead, he
hurriedly went the other direction without a word.

When the doors closed behind them Sean said,
“He is the worst sick guy you will ever meet. He whines, he
bitches--he hates it. He absolutely detests being sick.”

Krista leaned against the wall of the
elevator, wishing it had seats. “Nice cover. I think that made up
for telling him I called him a Boy Named Sue.”

Sean snickered as the doors opened again at
the garage level. As soon as Krista was in the car she laid back
gratefully. She wasn’t much better at being sick than John, even if
it was self-induced.

The day was spent mostly sleeping, so when
Krista received the text from Sean about the laptop at about 7:00
p.m., two things were happening. One was that she was looking like
the same pile of dog crap as he’d left her, except now she was in
pajamas. The second was that Abbey was home from work with her
newest squeeze, and was having loud, ridiculous sex.

Krista opened the door to a tired-looking
Sean and a laptop. Unfortunately, she couldn’t muffle the
inexcusable screeching and grunting coming from Abbey’s room.

“Hey,” Sean started before he heard what was
going on. “What--?”

“My roommate. No excuse for her bedroom
antics.”

It sounded like a mating call of wild
animals. There were screamed, rhythmic “huh huh huh,” yowls,
“YES!”, and, “Fuck me bad boy!” It was a theoretical dark and
stormy night when Ben and Krista sat Abbey down and asked her to be
quieter; show some consideration for her roommates. They were
informed, rather rudely, that she had no control over her pleasure
meter. She had to express herself.

Krista relayed this to Sean as he looked
into the house in a state of shock and fascination.

“So gross!” he laughed as he crossed the
threshold around Krista.

She followed him in and sat on the couch
next to him. He put the computer on the coffee table. “How long
does this usually last?”

“Uh...depends, really. Ben and I timed it a
couple times and the record seems to be about forty-five, but this
is a new dude, so I don’t know how long he can keep it up.”

“And does she come out of the room
after?”

“Yeah, generally. How did you know? Do you
recognize the sounds or something?”

Krista got a dirty look. “No. But I do find
this hilarious. If I was with a woman like that I think I would
quit halfway through. I would be too distracted to finish.”

“I know,
right
?!” Krista gave him
a playful push. “How can guys stand it?”

“Does she do this every time she has
sex?”

“I am led to believe so.”

“How do you sleep?” Sean looked at Krista
with a boyish gleam in his eyes, probably the same look he would’ve
given a slug when he was five. Then there was a shift. It was
subtle, but it was there. His eyes took in her plaid pajamas, which
were far from sexy, her messy hair, her fuzzy slippers, and his
look started to smolder. He let a breath tumble out of his mouth
slowly and stood up.

“You have anything to eat yet?” he asked
quietly as he put his hands in his pockets. His playful mood was
extinguished.

Krista blinked in uncertainty at the change.
“Um, no. I was just going to think about that, actually. This is
the first time I have been up all day.”

“C’mon. I have to get away from the absurd
sex.”

Instead of the playful banter from a second
ago, now it seemed like it was bothering him. If Krista was
paranoid, she would think he didn’t want to think of her and sex in
the same brain compartment.

Good thing her paranoia took a back seat to
her fuzzy head and empty belly.

Outside in the fresh, yet cold, air, Krista
felt immensely better. The house had been stuffy. Warm, but stuffy.
One open window would change the warm part in seconds, so sometimes
it was necessary to deal with stuffy. Plus, she’d been too lazy to
get out of bed and walk the five feet required to open the window.
Might as well have been five miles. A change of scenery was another
thing she really needed.

“Anything interesting happen today?” Krista
asked as she followed him into his house.

“Our date is set in a few weeks with the
clients. We are incorporating just the core team--the sales guys,
you, Marcus and Judy. The execs don’t want the clients knowing the
group working on their campaign is so small.”

“Yeah, Dell had an army at their command.”
Krista couldn’t hide that she was disgruntled by that fact.

“
Afraid of hard work, are
we?” he asked as they headed toward the kitchen.

“Not afraid as much as pissed that we are
working so hard with a big account when just a couple months ago
the whole company was working on a different big client.”

“I could get more help if I wanted to, but
so far I’ve refused.”

“What?” Krista rounded on Sean, who had put
his stuff down and gone in the kitchen. “You mean we are doing all
this without help because of your ego?”

Sean looked at her askew,
anger barely contained. “It has nothing to do with my
ego
. My privileges of
hiring in are depleted thanks to your friends. From now on I have
to use the company staff resources, which are less than adequate.
Do you want to do their work all over again? Or fight them on the
right way to do a presentation?”

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news,
but if you burn out your team, you won’t even have someone to redo
work.”

Sean braced his hands on the counter. His
muscles were flexed through his white shirt, his eyes were a dark,
muddy green, and his lips were slightly open. He looked like he
wasn’t sure if he wanted to shake her or talk rationally.

He chose reason. “After Friday I am going to
meet with John and assess the situation. We are already
strategizing on a plan to reorganize the company. Our team has done
better work than the company has seen in years, and John and I are
going to help the company realize this. If you can hang on for a
while longer, I am sure you will benefit from my illustrious,
though misplaced, ego.”

“I don’t think you should
be telling me about reorganizing. That is
really
good gossip...” Krista was
poking the beehive jokingly to ease the situation.

The corners of Sean’s mouth
tugged upwards and his eyes sparkled. “Marcus is
desperate
to learn the
gossip on you, you know. You mystify him. You mystify a great many
people, in fact. No one can gossip for long about you because no
one knows enough about you to do so. Especially now that you are
rarely in the break room. Those who do know you have only seen you
in a working capacity, with a stellar work ethic at that. I have so
far been silent on your strange inner-workings, but a couple
sentences from me would turn into
great
, lasting
gossip...”

“You blackmailing fucker!” Krista said with
a laugh. “You know too much.”

Sean shrugged as he got out various food
items from cabinets and the fridge. “I know more than you think,
young lady. I pay attention for just such an occasion.” He glanced
at her with those clear eyes, deeper now then she could ever
remember, and gave her a wink.

Sean dumped some vegetables in front of her
with a chopping board and a knife.

“
Make yourself useful,” he
said with an eye-twinkle.

“Not ordering in?”