Some Like It Perfect (A Temporary Engagement) (9 page)

Songs weren’t favorites until you’d heard them a few times. And if you liked it the very first time it was because you heard something in it that you liked already.

Love was based on familiarity, beauty was based on familiarity.

Delia knew why his eyes were beautiful. They looked like a pool of melted milk chocolate and what woman could resist chocolate?

They got it positioned just right and she climbed the ladder to the scaffolding, saying, “Is Gus going to come crashing in today?”

“Most likely. She drove in with me this morning and I expect she will make her presence known.”

“Eighteen-year-old girls are pretty good at that.”

“Eighteen-year-old girls are good at making all their wishes known. She told me she couldn’t start work on a Friday.”

Delia snorted. “Well, sure. It’s like starting a diet. You can’t do it at the
end
of the week.”

“But once I pointed out that she had no money for gas, she somehow persevered.”

Delia closed her eyes, fighting her smile. She had to remember to be careful. She couldn’t take him when he was being funny. When he smiled. When he
laughed
.

She chewed on her lip, she dug her nails into her palms, and when she couldn’t take it one more second, she peeked over the side of the scaffolding.

He was typing on his computer, smiling into the screen, and Delia just looked at him.

She whispered, “Please stop smiling.”

He looked up. His brown eyes warm and happy and he didn’t look like a perfect asshole at that moment. He just looked perfect.

She said, “We’re going to have a real problem if you don’t stop doing that.”

“Because?”

“Because you’re beautiful and you make me want to paint you.”

“Don’t.”

“I won’t.” She would, she was. She wouldn’t tell him. “And I forget that you’re a corporate shill and I work for you.”

He nodded and looked back at his screen. “I’ve noticed you have a real problem respecting authority.”

“I have a real problem with people expecting me to respect arbitrary authority.”

“How do you decide if it’s arbitrary?”

“It’s all arbitrary.”

His lips did their slow glide up and she turned back to her paint. Stupid, beautiful men. Stupid, beautiful men who cried out to be painted. She had to paint him just to get him out of her head.

She ignored him as best she could the rest of the morning, taking her frustration out on the ceiling. She jerked when Gus pushed the door open and shouted, “Lunch! You coming, Delia?”

Delia peeked over the scaffolding to find both of them looking up at her. Gus was dressed in a white button-up shirt and navy slacks that looked like they’d been a school uniform. Jack pushed his chair back and stood, a smile threatening at the corners of his mouth. Delia held a finger up at him, warning him about that smile.

He waved her down. “Then hurry up, Delia. Gus is dying to tell us how her first day of work went.”

Delia went. She liked to eat, she was hungry, and she wanted to know how Gus’s first day of work had gone.

Gus dug into her Cobb salad. “I filled out paperwork.”

Delia cut into her steak. Her thick, fatty, cooked-just-right steak that she would never have ordered for herself. Jack had looked at her and said, “Do you eat meat?”

She’d nodded. “I eat it. I love it. I can’t get enough of it.”

Gus had laughed. “I would have guessed vegetarian. I would have guessed vegan.”

Delia had nodded again in agreement. “In my misspent youth.”

And then Jack had ordered them both rib-eye steaks, medium rare. Delia couldn’t decide if she was upset at him for his high-handed ordering or happy that she hadn’t had to look at the prices.

Jack said to Gus, “And did you see any positions you were qualified for?”

She said happily, “I wasn’t qualified for any of them. They were obviously hoping for a best-case candidate.”

“Which you obviously are not.”

“I am. I’m your sister. Anybody who hires me, barely out of high school with no work experience, will get major brownie points, won’t they?”

Delia nodded. “She is not wrong. I could use an assistant.”

Jack choked on his steak and reach for his water glass.

Delia said over his coughing fit, “You’d need to open and stir paint cans, carry things up and down an unnecessarily high ladder, move cover cloths, and wipe up spills.”

“I could do that in my sleep.”

Delia said wisely, “It is not the chore that is hard but the everlasting repetition that kills the spirit.”

“Is that a quote?”

“It should be.”

Jack cleared his throat loudly and Delia looked at him. “You going to make it?”

“I appreciate the thought, Delia. But working with you would not teach her the lessons I was hoping for.”

She raised an eyebrow at him but he merely said, “She’s already learned how to disrespect the CEO. And how to be late.”

“But has she learned how to do those with flair?”

“I don’t want her to learn how to do those things with flair. I want her to learn how to show up and get the job done.”

Gus looked between them. “I’m sitting right here.”

Delia said to Jack, “Is your ceiling getting painted? The job’s getting done. I don’t know why getting there at the gong of a clock matters.”

“It shows respect.”

“It shows that you’re anal. And I respect my work. I may not respect you, I might not respect that pile of glass your money bought you, but every brush stroke on your ceiling is a part of my soul. You can see how I think, what I believe, who I am, who I wish I was in everything I paint. You could see that if you
looked
at it.”

Jack and Gus stared at her.

“Every bit of it has to come from within me, every bit of it open to five-second critiques, careless dismissals, and just flat-out dislike.”

She tried to hide it, she tried to hide what she really painted. But it was still there to be seen by any passing Joe if he cared to look hard enough.

She didn’t particularly want anyone to look hard enough. She especially didn’t want anyone looking too hard at the ceiling she was currently painting her soul into. It wasn’t a particularly flattering view of herself.

Jack said softly, “Why do you do it?”

“I can’t not do it. I’ve known what I wanted to do, what I had to do, forever.”

He nodded. “I’ve known what I was going to do, what I had to do, forever.”

Her gaze sharpened. “But it’s not what you want?”

“Want was never part of the equation.”

Gus ate her salad and flicked her eyes between them.

Delia said, “Want is always part of the equation.”

“Money is part of the equation, responsibility is part of the equation, duty is part of the equation.”

Delia looked down at the steak that money, responsibility, and duty had paid for.

She knew a lot of people would disagree with her, probably most people, but she thought too much money might be just as bad as not enough. She’d had plenty of experience with not enough. It was bad, she wouldn’t deny it. But there was a certain freedom in having nothing to lose.

She asked, “Do you think want is less important than money, responsibility, and duty?”

“Yes. Perhaps. I have always assumed so. Do you think it’s more important?”

“Yes. Maybe. I always have in the past.” Delia glanced at Gus. “But I live on my friend’s couch, so I might have been wrong. It might be just as important, not more than.”

Jack looked at Gus in her grown-up school uniform. “It might be just as important, not less than.”

Gus took a long drink, looking between the two of them with her eyebrows raised, then said, “Um, are we going to order dessert?”

Jack looked at her half-eaten salad and Delia’s half-eaten steak. “I don’t think so.”

Delia and Gus made faces at each other as their plates were cleared.

Jack handed over his card to the waiter and Delia perked up. “Expense account?”

He huffed a laugh. “No.”

They walked the short distance back to the offices and Delia breathed in the chill air. She said, “If you know anyone with a spare bedroom, let me know. I really miss sleeping in a room with a door.”

Gus nodded. “I’m looking for a place, too.”

Jack stared at her. “You are?”

“I can’t live with you and Mother forever.”

Jack looked like he’d thought that was exactly what she’d do. He’d looked like he’d expected to have to kick her out like Delia had told him to.

“And how are you going to pay for it?”

“I have a job.”

Delia and Jack stopped.

Gus turned slowly, trying so hard not to grin at them that her lips looked like little puckered berries. “I told you I was filling paperwork out all morning.”

Jack crossed his arms. “Who hired you?”

“HR. They needed someone to take applications and make copies and update the job openings. They wanted someone proficient in database but I told them I was quick with computers. I’ll learn.” She shrugged. “I told you they were looking for a best-case candidate. But they decided I’d do. I think they just wanted the ear of the CEO working in their office.”

“The ear of the CEO?”

“If I’m going to ride in with you every morning you’re going to be hearing about my work environment. I mean, really Jack, HR is the first place prospective employees see. Don’t you think it should look nice? Maybe a nice, painted ceiling?”

Delia looked at Jack and said, “I think she’s going to be just fine.”

Monday morning, Jack was waiting for Delia when she entered the office. He rose, motioning her toward him. “Delia. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

She peeled her coat off slowly and wondered if she was getting fired. And if she’d have to pay back the money.

He said, “You’re looking for an apartment?”

She cocked her head. “Yes.”

“Roommates?”

She stopped walking toward him. “Where is this going, Jack?”

“Gus wants to move out. She’s thinking about moving in with her boyfriend.”

Delia’s breath rushed out. “Ohhh.”

“Her friends have all gone off to college. She doesn’t want to live alone and I don’t want her living with her boyfriend.”

She blinked wildly. “And you thought of me?”

He nodded and sat back down. He twisted his computer screen around to show her a two-bedroom apartment not far from Justine’s.

Her eyes popped when she saw the rent. “I can’t afford that.”

He turned the screen back around to look at it again. “No?”

“No.”

“What can you afford?”

“Probably what you spend on toilet paper every month.”

He thought for a long moment, then said, “I have no idea what I spend on toilet paper in a month.”

Delia closed her eyes. “I meant, I can afford a pittance. To you it would be a pittance.”

“I don’t want my sister living in some crack den.”

“It’s not on my top ten, either. Surely there’s someone you know who she can live with. She doesn’t have to live with me.”

“There’s no one I know I would want her to live with. Except you.”

A little bubbly warmness filled Delia’s heart, and then she remembered the last time she’d gotten all warm and bubbly around him.

She narrowed her eyes. “Because?”

“I think you would be a good influence on her.”

“I distinctly remember you not wanting her to work with me because I wouldn’t be.”

“As a professional influence, no. As a personal influence, yes.”

Delia sucked in a deep breath and whispered, “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He looked surprised. “It is?”

“You think I’m a good personal influence?”

“I would be very happy if Gus became a little more like you as a person. You’re outspoken, brave, optimistic, and unrepentant.”

“How do you know I’m optimistic?”

“You were Pippi Longstocking for Halloween. And you’re painting happy clouds on my ceiling.”

Delia looked up. “Do they look happy?”

“They look happy and purposeful.” When she tilted her head back down, he was looking right at her.

Delia started smiling stupidly, Jack’s lips started curving. She sat down with a thump.

“You don’t know me all that well. What if I’m just waiting for some young impressionable teenager to lure in.”

“Are you?”

“Not really. Living with a teenager doesn’t sound all that fun to me.”

“It’s not. Which is why I will help with your share of the rent.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Delia held her hand up. “You want to pay me to live with your sister?”

“I want to pay you to live in a neighborhood I won’t worry about my sister living in.”

“I can’t decide which one of us should be more insulted.”

Jack said, “I don’t know why either one of you should be insulted. I would like my sister to live in a safe neighborhood. And I’d like to pay you to make it happen.”

“And what are you
really
paying me for? I’m not going to be spying on her and reporting to you.”

“Thank you. I’d prefer not to know what she was getting up to. I assume if her boyfriend is as bad as I fear, you’ll make your opinion known. Probably to the both of us.”