She was unscrewing a back sofa leg. “Call me Jen. Anyone who has wrapped one of my legs in a towel has earned the right not to be formal.” She brandished the leg she’d removed. “Trade ya.”
Christ. She was flirting with me.
I may not have many rules, but the most cardinal one of all was Thou shalt not have sex with a co-worker. And although I’d bent that one once (she’d given her two-week notice, so I got off on a technicality), I would never, not ever, violate it when the co-worker in question was also my co-host.
“Okay, Jen, what are we doing here?” Let her interpret that any way she pleased.
“We are putting the prettier leg in front and hiding the dinged-up one against the wall.”
Score one for me. I really hadn’t wanted to set her straight, gently or otherwise.
While I put the furniture back together, Jen put pizza on the plates. I watched her bring them over and yup—that ass had a definite sashay that wasn’t there this morning. I held out my hand for the plate with two slices.
“Nuh-uh. This one’s mine. If you want a second piece, your legs work just fine to get it yourself.”
“Wow.”
“What?” At least that’s what I think she said. It was kind of muffled around her mouthful of cheese.
“You. Eating like a real person. Most women do the whole dainty I-live-on-air thing around guys and then totally pig out in private.” I took a bite of my own slice.
“When I’m hungry, I eat. I’m blessed with a fast metabolism.” She took a swig of soda. “And it’s easier not to pretend to be I’m somebody I’m not. Especially with you. Trust me, there will be some mornings when you’ll just have to appreciate that I’m marginally presentable and don’t smell.”
“I doubt that. In case nobody told you, you’re gorgeous.”
Her pizza paused halfway to her mouth. “I do recall someone mentioning it this morning. Thank you.” The slice went back down to the plate and her eyes flashed down to study the floor. “But you should know now, I have alarm clock issues. When we unpack my bedroom, you’ll see what I mean.”
“How, exactly, does one have issues with an alarm clock?”
She sighed. “They don’t wake me up. I have to use three of them, set about a minute apart, scattered around my room. And even then, sometimes I oversleep. So this–” she looked up again, drawing a circle in the air around her face–“may not show up pretty all that often.”
“That could be frightening.”
Jen smacked my shoulder. And whattayaknow, my dick wasn’t so tired after all. I shifted, trying to squish him. This was not the time for Tack Jr. to be investigating his surroundings. Nor to be thinking of her bedroom.
A sudden, unrelated thought popped into my head. “Where’s your dog? I’ve been here almost an hour and haven’t seen him.”
“Angus? I closed him in my room upstairs when everybody else from the station were leaving. He kept trying to scoot outside between their feet. Then you got here as I was heading upstairs to let him out. Poor guy. I forgot all about him.” She set her plate down on the cushion and started up the stairs.
I nearly choked on my pizza. “You named a wiener dog Angus?”
“You’ll see when you meet him,” she yelled from somewhere above my head.
The barking started on the staircase. He sounded bigger and burlier than any dachshund I’d ever known. I saw a streak, stretched out like Superman, fly from the end of the stairway, and he was still barking his damn head off. The blur screeched to a stop near my feet, tail wagging and growling hollowly like he wasn’t sure he meant it.
He was a sleek reddish-brown, short and elegant and looking like he belonged on one of those calendars they sell in PetSmart. His chest didn’t look big enough for all that racket.
“Are you hiding another dog up there?” I glanced over at the foot of the stairs. Big mistake. Ten pounds of noisy little German landed on the couch next to me and stole the last few inches of my pizza.
He bounced back down to the floor and had the cheese in his mouth before I could even react.
Jensen yelled his name and a tug-of-war with my now-denuded pizza ensued.
I watched for a moment, and neither one seemed to be winning.
“Angus.” I didn’t yell, but he could tell I meant business. He dropped the crust and flattened himself to the floor. It was almost hard to tell. He only dropped about an inch.
“Wow. I need to learn that trick.” She picked up the naked crust and tossed it into a trash bag. Angus continued to make like a rug.
“He’s awfully ballsy for being so small.” I patted the front of the couch and Angus army-crawled over, giving my Nikes a surreptitious sniff before going back to being prostrate.