Not in my Job Description - Avery Clavens Book 1

Chapter 4 - The shirt says it all, Bite me

I woke up the next morning thanking whatever almighty power there may be that it was Friday. Not having much of a personal life, I didn’t usually welcome the end of the week as wholeheartedly, but I barely wanted to go to work. Staying as far away from Nate sounded like a great plan in my book.

I was working on the Schwartz case, though, and I’d made some progress. I wasn’t going to let the heavy air I felt in the office keep me from completing my task. A part of me wanted to prove to Nate that I was good at what I did. There wasn’t really a reason for it, after the no dating mandate, but I still thought it was important.

After getting dressed in a black t-shirt that said, Bite me in hot pink and normal boot cut jeans, I checked my phone for messages. It said I had two texts. One from Frannie asking me to meet her for drinks later, which wasn’t too crazy, but the other one was from Nate, saying he was sorry for being a jerk. That one was extremely surprising.

I wasn’t sure what he had to apologize for; he’d stated the obvious. Work and relationships didn’t mix as far as I knew, so we weren’t starting a relationship. Clearly, I’d thrown out some signals that I wasn’t aware of that indicated to him I was interested in something, since he had to spell it out for me the day before.

We knew nothing about each other, and what we did was more than likely all lies, so I didn’t see the need for his text. I didn’t want to discuss it at work, though, so I quickly sent a text back letting him know everything was good from my point of view.

I grabbed some flip-flops and headed out the door, hoping the bossman wasn’t expecting the professional attire to last more than a day. The makeup definitely wasn’t making a return visit. Even without a relationship possible, I didn’t want to give Nate any ideas about me dressing up for him.

When I arrived, it looked like Carl stayed all night working on the emails. I hurriedly made a pot of coffee and took him a cup. His glasses were perched on the top of his head and his face wasn’t more than an inch away from the monitor.

“Thanks,” he grumbled, not taking his eyes from the screen.

He took a quick sip of the coffee and then set it down next to his keyboard. Chances were good he burnt every single one of his taste buds by not waiting for the coffee to cool down a little. I was cordial enough to do some nice things for Carl, but blowing on his coffee to take the heat off wasn’t one of them.

“No problem. How’s it going?” I asked as I scanned over what I could see on the screen.

“Good. I’ve backdoored into the guys account and am running some traces to pinpoint his computer location, from there I should be able to get into his computer and as long as he isn’t using a public one for his emails I’ll get all his relevant information.”

“That’s great,” Nate said as he walked in, overhearing the conversation. “Shouldn’t be long and then we can get this guy.”

Nate was wearing a nice dress shirt without an overcoat. I couldn’t help but stare at how well his muscled chest and arms filled it out. So far in our acquaintance, I’d only seen him wearing a jacket.

Seeing what was underneath, I wished he’d go find something to cover up with, because throwing myself at him was the only thing I could think about. Relationship or not, I could feel a draw to the man and I wasn’t liking it. I didn’t often think in odd romantic phrases, but he was definitely the flame to my moth.

I heard a throat clearing and looked up to see a smirk on his face. “Good morning, Avery. How was your night?”

“Great as usual.” I said, casually waving my hand at him as I went to fire up my computer. Remembering Frannie’s text, I sent a quick note telling her to name a time and place.