Page 48 of Famous for a Living

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the prettiest girl this side of Montana here to distract us another day.”

Red gloss has just covered my top lip when Jax steps out of Uncle Terry’s doorway, Zaiah on his heels. I click out of my profile page and back onto an article about the Lyrid meteor shower for the upcoming newsletter.

I drop the lip gloss back in my desk and give the drawer a firm push.

“Hello, Jax,” I say flatly.

“Jax. That’s not how you talk to her.”

“Sorry.” Jax puts a hand on his chest. “Prettiest girl in all of Montana—”

“Try again.” Zaiah’s face remains expressionless, as though he’s accustomed to having to steer Jax’s misguided attempts.

“Prettiest”—Jax hesitates, looking from Zaiah to me—“prettiest girl in the whole world—”

“You’re on your way to getting another citation.”

“You are just so extremely pretty.” Jax throws out his arms. “Like, really, really pretty—”

“Just go.” Zaiah pushes open the door to Terry’s office. “Go in there and have Terry explain to you, again, why you don’t talk to female coworkers like that, particularly coworkers who happen to be your superior’s daughter.”

“Niece—” I interject.

“Niece,” Zaiah says.

“Peggy says she likes it!” Jax says, all the while being corralled through Terry’s door. “Tell ’em, Big Mama.”

We all turn to Peggy, who’s sitting at her desk across the room, munching on a bag of jelly beans.

She looks up. “I allow it.”

A few more rounds of poor word choices and Zaiah gets Jax into Terry’s office. Shuts the door.

At the same time, flurries scatter along the doormat and I turn to see Peggy has her cane in one hand and purse in the other. The front office door shuts as we see her through the window crossing the parking lot toward her car.

Suddenly, the room is empty.

Peggy is gone to lunch. Uncle Terry is in his office with Jax. It’s just Zaiah and me. Reluctantly, I turn my gaze up to him. “Hello,” I say quietly.

The greeting is left wanting, but at the moment I’m having trouble coming up with something better.

Ever since our mountaintop tension two weeks ago, I’ve done my best to avoid him. Really, based on both the airport fiasco and the hiking fiasco and even the fiasco of our first meeting, we are just too dissimilar.

No hard feelings.

Nothing to do about it.

We’re just two completely opposite people who, for some reason I can’t really pin down, just need to do ourselves a favor and never mingle. So that’s what I fully intended to do.

Polite hellos and good evenings when needed, and otherwise, avoid conversation.

I’m not sure how long I intended life to go on like this, but I was thinking . . . forever.

“So,” Zaiah begins. “I hear Mina roped you into a movie marathon.”

Small talk. He wants to do small talk.

I know what this means.