Page 9 of Just for the Cameras
His eyes nearly fly out of his head as he says, “Two to three times a week? Doing what?”
If only Gretchen were here to elbow him and tell him to watch what he says. Doubtful she would like his most recent response.
“Well, cleaning the—”
“Cleaning?” His brow rises. “Cleaning what?”
“If you’d let me finish,” I answer, the tension between us growing, “you would have heard me say, cleaning the enclosure, feeding once trained, and basic animal care, as if you were an intern.”
He rubs his lips together, avoiding all eye contact with me. “Don’t you have employees to do that?”
“We’re actually short-staffed at the moment. We’re looking to bring on someone else, but finding someone with the experience we need has been hard. After the avian flu broke out, there was a decline in flamboyance all around the country, leaving zookeepers to focus on other animals.”
“Flamboyance?” he asks with a quirk of his brow.
“That would be a group of flamingos.”
“Ah.” He blows out a heavy breath. “Okay, so what, I just show up here, do some chores, and then leave?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Great.” He lifts from the table. “Then send me a schedule.” He holds his hand out to me, and I study it for a second, insulted at his abrupt departure.
So that’s that?
He’s just going to shake on it and leave?
You know, if I had half the courage I wish I did, I’d swat his hand away and tell him to sit back down because I’m not finished with him. But I’m afraid to admit I’m weak and haven’t quite established a backbone yet, so demanding that a man four times my size take a seat is not in my wheelhouse.
Instead, I stand as well, reach out and take his hand in mine to give it a shake, but he looks at me as if I’ve grown three heads, two of them being flamingos, before he shakes me off.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Giving you a handshake? Or were you looking for a high five?”
“I was looking for your phone so I could give you my number so you could send me the schedule.”
Well, that wasn’t obvious at all.
Grumbling, I reach into my pocket and say, “Words accompanying the hand would have been helpful.”
I unlock my phone and hand it to him, only to find him staring at me with mild curiosity.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he replies as he punches his number into my phone. When he hands it back to me, he says, “I put my number under Graydon St. John.”
“Wow, novel idea, since that’s your name.”
The smallest of twitches appears around his lips, which only pisses me off even more because I find nothing about this funny. Not a single thing. When Phil came to me about the prospect of attaching a celebrity to my efforts to upgrade our facilities, hope and ideas bloomed inside me. I know that with a big name attached to your events, more people pay attention. But now that I see that the person I’m going to have to work with is only willing to give the bare minimum, all of that hope has been quickly extinguished.
“Is there…a problem?” he asks, folding his massive arms over his equally massive chest. Dear God, the muscles on this man. I think if I told him to, he could lift the crustacean fridge with one hand right over his head.
“No,” I answer.
He studies me for a moment, his dark gaze swooping over me, intimidating me, making me want to shrink right back down into my chair.
“You’re lying.”
