Charlie Foxtrot (Book 2 of Love is War Series)

Chapter 11

“Hey Auden, did you see this pile of docs over here? Where the hell did this come from?”

She stood up from her desk and moved over to look at where Greg was pointing. A large stack of papers, some blueprints, and a few file folders that had been set off to the side next to Natasha’s old desk. The clerk had gone on maternity leave and was being replaced by a temp who was slated to start working the next business day.

“No. What the hell? I thought we’d gotten everything. I swear, you go to the bathroom or leave the room for ten minutes and the s**t just piles up.”

Groaning, she got to one knee to try and get her balance so she could grab the first pile off the top. The whole thing was up to the top of her knee, and cylinders with blueprints were leaned up against it. She’d left to use the bathroom earlier when Greg decided to grab more coffee, and she’d gotten distracted by someone that had a question for her about something completely unrelated. By the time she’d gotten back to her desk, Greg was there and slowly sipping his coffee and waiting patiently. Now, they had more filing to collate and sort when they just wanted to sit down and take a short break. Their backs were killing them.

“I think we can get the files and just set them inside for now. It’s almost time for our last break anyway.” Greg sounded less pleased than she did.

“That’s good with me. We can go back after our fifteen and we should get most of it done before closing. If we have to keep it until Monday, that’s fine too. We were told that was the last of it.”

“Probably found more, or one of the architects been hoarding,” Auden muttered. “Like packrats.”

They took their time and made several trips to the file room, finally slumping against the wall inside. Auden’s feet ached, and she tried to quell the urge to b***h about it. Because a lot of her duties were electronic and databases, her job was primarily sedentary, but when they got a large influx of filing, it wasn’t unknown for the clerks to be very active, walking in between offices and the files or record rooms. All the ones they received now were about jobs completed last year that hadn’t been able to be moved into the old files rooms because of the overflow from years past. Now that much of the older files were gone, they could migrate last year’s into their new homes. It was something that happened every year around this time, like clockwork. Purge, clean—or dust and vacuum to be specific—and then fill right back up again.

“Want to get more coffee?”

Auden answered with a tired grunt, but found she was thirstier for water since her feet were aching and her throat was dry. Coffee would only make it worse. “No. I think I’ll grab a bottled water and down that in 15 seconds flat. Give me a few minutes and we can make a plan of attack over our break. I really don’t want to have to wait all weekend to deal with the rest of it. Let’s just get it over with. If we know how to make the most of our time, we can figure this s**t out before we get back to work.”

That sounded good to Greg, who escorted Auden to the breakroom down the hall and refilled his cup while she grabbed a bottled water from the vending machine. There was one such machine on each of the 2nd and 4th floors, but not on all 5.

Unscrewing the cap, she took five huge swallows before breaking to take a breath. She wasn’t sweaty, but she was definitely going to be turning on the fan in the filing room so there was an air current.

“f**k, there is nothing like water. Water, water, water, water!”

“Jesus, woman. I’ll take coffee over the clear stuff any day. What’s wrong with you?”

“Coffee is great, but also a diuretic. Water is from the earth.”

“So is coffee,” he retorted.

“Water is unsullied!”

“Jesus what are you two babbling about in here?”

Auden’s head whipped over to the sound of Jim’s voice, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Since her date with him, they’d flirted mostly through email, because they still hadn’t let anyone know they’d kissed or hung around outside of work. It was almost unspoken between the two of them, because Auden was no i***t. She knew her Aunt Mary would flip if she knew she was dating a coworker, much less one with a very questionable reputation. She didn’t care. Jim didn’t seem all that bad, and he had admitted to her over the course of the last five days that he was told to stay away. Why didn’t he, she had asked. His words verbatim were, I tried. I tried and I couldn’t. I can’t explain it any other better than that.

Taking a deep breath, she forced a genial smile on her face, one she hoped didn’t look suspicious. Too brittle and it would look like they were at odds with each other. Too bright, and it gave the opposite affect and people would hazard a guess that something more was going on between the two of them. She really needed to have a chat with him if that continued. He’d already asked her out again, and they had a tentative date for the weekend. He said he was thinking up something, but that he would call her on Friday night after they’d gone home from work and wound down for the week. He’d been stressed but thankful that Clay had finally gotten back and was at the helm once again. He could never do what his friend did, he said. Not in a million years.

“We were just talking about which is the superior drink, water or coffee.”

“Hmmm,” Jim hummed. “That’s a difficult choice, but I can see the merit in both. Water is the building block of life. Without water there would be no Earth and no life, but coffee is what keeps us going.”

“So coffee is superior. Without coffee, we would all move like slugs and get very little done.”

It was a silly conversation, but Jim took it as if it was completely normal and treated it very seriously. “Yes, but without water, there would be no coffee. The beans have very little moisture and little nutritional value. Coffee might be what makes America go round, but water makes the world go round. You don’t see people complaining about lack of coffee now, do you? But there are famines and droughts, and those seem to be much more serious.”

They went round and round until the end of their break, and broke apart when they had to get back to work. They both didn’t relish the idea of that, but it had to be done, and Auden, for once, would prefer getting it over with and starting a fresh week the following Monday.

“What’s your plans this weekend? Visiting your aunt again?”

Auden looked over, surprised, before realizing she’d mentioned to him weeks ago that she often did that these days. She had hung out with Aunt Mary on Sunday last week, but they’d gone out for coffee—Auden’s treat—instead of hanging around Clay’s place. It felt weird because Jim was there, though he was moving into the house on the grounds very soon. He’d ordered some living room furniture and was only waiting for its delivery, which was all he needed for now until he was able to peruse more stuff for the dining room and kitchen. If Auden had to guess, she’d say that he was looking forward to it.

“Probably, yeah. I might have a few other things I have to do. Nothing special, really.” She didn’t want to mention any date, because then people asked questions, and she wasn’t exactly at liberty to say.

“Oh? Anything fun?”

“Hmm, not sure actually. We’ll see how it goes, I guess. Didn’t cement anything down yet. I still have to ask Mary what she wants to do. You? Anything to look forward to over the weekend?”

“Actually, yes.” Greg paused and started to hand over some documents to drop into the T section. “And I was actually going to ask you a question about that. As a favor, of course.”

“Oh?” She was listening only halfheartedly. Greg was a decent guy, but a little boring. His idea of a nice weekend off was catching up on reality TV shows on his DVR and walking his dog.

“Yeah. My roommate and I are having a party this weekend. It’s in my apartment building and we’ve invited the entire floor. Was wondering if you wanted to come.”

She stopped and looked over at him. “Like a housewarming party or something?” She knew he’d just moved into the place after having split up with his live-in girlfriend a few months ago. She’d gotten the apartment. He’d gotten the dog.

“Sort of, but we are also inviting some friends as well so it doesn’t seem like I only invited a bunch of people I don’t know. You interested?”

She had to think about that, but decided to ask a few more questions first. “When is it and at what time?”

“Saturday night around 7 PM,” he replied immediately. Most of the residents in the building have regular jobs so I—”

The door opened behind them, and Jim walked in with his own set of documents before staring at them both. His face was indecipherable. “What’s a regular job? Well what’s an irregular one, for that matter?”

Greg was too stupid to realize he’d stepped in some s**t and answered without thinking. “You know, a regular job is like a nine to five job. Normal people have them.”

Jim walked forward a little and canted his head slightly. “So if you don’t work those hours you’re not normal?”

Greg looked uncertain for a moment, but decided to nod his head hesitantly. “Yeah.”

Oh, Jesus, Auden thought. She could think of at least ten jobs off the top of her head that were considered irregular. Before she could point that out, though, Jim was moving on.

“My mother was a nurse before she moved to Arizona to retire. Her hours varied greatly, and she sometimes worked weekends. That’s irregular to you? My mom isn’t normal?”

Auden almost closed her eyes. Greg was going to end up stepping all over his own d**k pretty soon but was too slow to realize. Thank God he was only a clerk and not in a management position.

“Well, I mean, that’s different. Emergencies happen all the time, and—”

“And police and fire personnel put their lives at risk even at 3 AM on a Saturday when someone’s house becomes an inferno or when there’s a break-in at a home. I don’t see anything but normal in that. In fact, I think it’s quite admirable.”

“I mean, yeah there are certain—”

“And just because they serve me food or wait on me at a restaurant, it doesn’t make serving an abnormal job. I did a fair bit of it too when I was in college getting an education.”

“You’re right, I guess, but—”

Auden averted her eyes. She couldn’t handle any more of this.

“And celebrities, even if they aren’t making admirable, notable gestures like saving lives and soothing burns or anything, does that mean they aren’t normal? They are flesh and blood and just as faulty as the rest of us.”

“I—” Greg seemed to be choking on his own tongue, so Auden decided to step in.

“I just remembered something I had to talk to you about, Mr. Lavezzo. Is it okay if we put the rest of the files away on Monday? I know the deadline was today, but I’m willing to start early or work through lunch if I have to in order to get the rest of it done.” Her eyes pleaded, but her smile was tensed, her jaw clenched.

Jim blinked over at her as if coming out of some daze. She may not have thought Greg was the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was relatively harmless. Maybe a little thoughtless of how he came off at times, but it’s not like it was done with malice.

“Sure, Miss Fenn. Let’s go to my office. I wanted to speak to you about something important anyway. Come on.”

She followed him out the door after nodding at Greg, who looked embarrassed and ready to sink into a puddle on the floor. As they walked toward Jim’s office, Auden started to get quite irritated, and she ended up stomping through his door and whipping around. Greg was a harmless i***t, but Jim could have been easier on him. Plus, it was strange that he acted at all perturbed. Jim usually wasn’t affected by such trivialities. He was the most laidback employee she’d ever seen, and that included the youngest of her coworkers.

She spun around only to be caught by his arms and swept away with his kiss.