Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (13 page)

Shucks, he
was right. Julia resisted the urge to stamp her foot like a little
girl. “In your dreams, you arrogant bastard,” she
muttered. “Everybody says I should stay away
from you.”

In the
silence that followed, she could still hear her heart beating in
her
throat.

“I can
imagine,” Michael quietly said, in such a low voice she wasn’t even
sure he’d actually said it until she saw the look in his
eyes.
It was a look of shame.

“Look, I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so mean
.”
Julia’s face grew hot with embarrassment. “It’s not like I can’t
work together with you – that won’t be a problem.”

Michael was
still watching her, his mouth set in a grim line. “I’m sorry he
hurt you like that.” Once again, he spoke so softly she wasn’t sure
she’d heard him correctly. Julia blinked in confusion. Who was he
talking about – himself?

“Okay, why
don’t I go and do what Mr
. Haider has
asked me to do,” Michael abruptly switched to business mode.
Apparently he’d caught sight of their boss. He walked over to the
cash register and beckoned for Julia to join him.
“By
the way, you can call him Martin.
Don’t
feel shy about it – he insists. He says he feels like a grandpa if
we call him sir.”

With wobbly
knees, Julia stood next to him and listened with half an ear as
Michael explained to her things about ringing in customer
purchases, punching in the codes for regularly-priced books,
special prices, discounts, and completing sales.

Her gaze
swerved to his face instead of the
buttons under his hands.
He looked so relaxed
and at ease. So handsome.
She just
couldn’t forget about that last kiss he had given her, the morning
after. She wanted to know if he had really changed. She wished she
could feel him that close once more. She wanted…

Oh, she had
to stop doing this to herself! He’d never even said he was sorry.
In fact, he acted like nothing had happened. And here she was –
daydreaming about dragging him behind the first available pile of
books to suck face with him out of sight, when she was really
supposed to
pay
attention
. Her lewd ways would turn her
into a clumsy, incompetent mess on her first day at work. She’d
sell new books to customers at a ninety percent discount by
accident, and Martin would fire her on the spot.

“You think
you’ll be okay?” Michael interrupted her inner harangue, looking at
her
from aside.

“Yeah. I’ll
manage.”
Quickly, she scuttled away,
determined to ask Donna for help later so as not to perish
ingloriously. She didn’t look back on purpose, running up the
stairs to unpack the day’s shipment like Martin had asked
her.

‘Gab… 3
guesses who works here 2 :$’ she texted Gaby as soon as she entered
the stockroom. She couldn’t help it – she had to share
this.

‘thorsten??’ her phone dinged one minute
later.

‘no… kolbe.’

‘is the mofo
stalking u?!’
Gaby texted.

‘can
’t b. he was here b4 me. this
= NOT good 4 my rep…’

‘hang in there. ttyl. X!’

With a big
sigh, Julia put away her phone and tried sticking to her task.
After ten minutes, Donna came in with a boy and a girl who were
clearly siblings
. She introduced them
both to Julia. When she sat down for a cup of coffee in the break
room around eleven with Marco and Silke – the twins – Michael was
nowhere to be found, fortunately.

“Have you guys worked with the cash register
yet?” she wanted to know.

Marco nodded. “Yeah, it’s
pretty simple.
Didn’t Michael explain it
to you this morning?”

Julia shrugged.
“Yup, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Sorry.”

Silke
star
ted laughing. “He’s quite a
distraction, huh?”

“Why do you
say that?”
Julia turned red.

“
Oh, come on,
don’t think I didn’t see you ogling him, girl.
The guy
is glorious.” She patted Julia’s hand.
“But don’t you fret. I’m dating someone, so fair Michael is
all yours.”

“Pfff. As
if,” Julia
huffed
sarcastically.

Silke and
Marco both eyed her curiously,
causing
her to grumble inwardly. Why couldn’t she keep her big mouth shut
for a change?

“We
went on a few dates,” she explained tartly. “And
then he decided to grow cold and ignore my calls, and ever since, I
keep bumping into him when all I want is to forget about the jerk.
End of story.”

“Oh, one
of
those
guys.” Silke cocked her head in surprise. “I wouldn’t have
pegged him as the type.”

Her twin
brother nodded his agreement. “Yeah, color me
confused. He seems like a very nice guy.”

Julia snorted
derisively.
“Well, why don’t
you
ask
him out then. You might be luckier than me.”

Marco grinned. “Not gonna
happen.
First of all, I’m not into guys,
and second of all, he still likes you. He stares at you, you
know.”

Julia
swallowed, her face flooding with color. Right
at that instant, the door to the break room opened and Michael
entered the room together with Donna. They all grew
quiet.

“Time for a
drink.” Michael looked at the three of them and hesitated.
“Uhm... am I interrupting something?” He sounded genuinely
insecure.

“No, of
course not,” Silke hastened to say. “We were just gossiping about
Martin, so we stopped talking because we thought it was him.” She
winked at Julia, who purposely ignored Mic
hael and took another cookie from the jar. She suddenly had
the irrepressible urge to flee the scene.

“I’m going to
the bathroom.” She abruptly stood up. “Will you help me with the
cash register later?” she mumbled at Silke before barreling out of
the room and running up the stairs to the restrooms.

With a
long-suffering sigh,
Julia slammed the
door shut and sat down on the toilet seat, running a hand through
her hair in frustration. Okay, so Marco had also picked up on
Michael’s fascination with her. She couldn’t deny his interest in
her any longer. But why did it manifest itself
after
she’d saved him
in the forest? She still didn’t get it. Maybe he felt like he had
to make things right between them.
Was that why he
wanted to be friends?

‘I’m sorry he
hurt you like that.’ The words he’d spoken earlier that day popped
into her mind. She’d probably misheard him, or maybe the knock on
his head had done more damage than everybody realized. Who
talked
about himself like that? Was he suffering from
disassociation?

One thing was
certain – l
ocking herself up in a
bathroom stall wouldn’t solve her inner turmoil. Julia left the
restroom and hurried downstairs. She was happy to see Silke had
already returned to man the checkout. This time, she would pay
extra attention during her explanation.

Things
weren’t
so bad, she told herself. All she
had to do was get through the day. Tomorrow, the store would be
closed, and tonight, she’d be able to evaluate today with Gaby and
the rest of her friends.
She could do this.

When lunch
break arrived, Julia made sure she was chatting animatedly to Donna
and Silke when Michael came in. Marco
followed him, the two of them sitting down at a table near
the coffee machine where Martin joined them after a few
minutes.

“Any plans for tonight?” Silke asked
Julia.

“Yes, we’re going to Shamrock. Me and my
school friends, that is. Oh, and my new neighbor is joining us. I
asked him out yesterday.”

“Way to go,
you strong,
independent woman.
Is he hot?”

“Yeah, he is.”
Julia couldn’t help cracking a goofy smile.
Silke and Donna both started wolf-whistling and giggling. The three
others at the next table looked sideways, and Julia felt Michael’s
eyes on her. She hoped he hadn’t heard the cause of all the
commotion. Although, of course, she shouldn’t really care whether
Michael knew of hot neighbor Thorsten’s existence or not – in fact,
it would be
good
if he realized she had moved on.

“I’ll keep
you girls posted,” she
cut the
conversation short, leaving it to Donna and Silke to fill her in on
their own plans for the weekend.

“If you feel
like it, please come to our birthday barbecue on Sunday,” Silke
said. “Marco and I are turning eighteen tomorrow, but our parents
won’t be there to congratulate us reaching adulthood – they’re
still on vacation. So, to make up for their poor parenting skills,
they said we could throw a big garden party. We have enough meat to
feed an orphanage, so don’t hesitate to bring some of your
friends.
Thorsten, for example.” She nudged Julia
conspiratorially.

Julia smiled.
“Thanks for inviting me. I have no idea whether
Thorsten will tag along, but I might bring some of my other
friends, if that’s okay with you.”

“Totally. As long as
they’re not vegetarians.
The more
carnivores, the merrier!”

Silke and
Julia swapped phone numbers, and after lunch Julia walked
downstairs for the last few working hours of her day.

At about four
o’clock, Martin asked her to bring up a few orders and unbox them
in the stockroom.
Feeling grateful she
could leave the checkout behind for a while, Julia climbed the
stairs to the third floor holding a large box of books. Once there,
she put the box down to open the door. To her surprise, the light
was already on, and her heart sped up when she saw Michael standing
in the corner, reaching for a set of encyclopedias on the top
shelf.

“Oh, hi,” she mumbled. “I have to shelf some
books here.” She pointed at her box.

“And I have a
customer downstairs who has never heard of Wikipedia.” Michael held
up the heavy tomes by way of explanation.

Julia cracked a
smile.
“Oh well, so much the better for
Martin. He’ll never get rid of those things otherwise.”

He grinned
back. “Who knows, he might put some in our Christmas
hampers.”

“Looking
forward to that already. Actually, I think it’s pretty neat, having
an encyclopedia at home. It feels so nostalgic – you know,
reminiscent of my mom’s childhood, when Internet was only used by
the CIA, not by puny mortals like us.”

“For real? Was the Internet developed by the
CIA?”

“Uhm, I don’t
really know. Axel knows a lot about that kind of stuff – you should
ask him.” Julia coughed shyly, suddenly wondering why she’d started
this conversation with him. And
why
had she picked a topic she
knew next to nothing about?

“I will.” He
walked past her without really looking away, then lingered at the
door.
She could see his hesitation.
“So, how about playing my mom’s grand piano sometime after
the weekend?”
His eyes bored into hers.

Julia
averted her eyes and stared hard at the floor.
“I don’t know yet. I work almost every day, so I probably won’t
have time.”

“Just
consider the offer,” he said quietly. “
I’m going back downstairs.”

She only
dared to look up
after he’d left. With a
deep sigh of frustration, she dragged the box full of books to the
shelf they belonged on and started to unpack them. When she was
almost done, Donna showed up with three more parcels that Martin
wanted unpacked and sorted. By the time they had finished the task,
it was one minute to five.

“Freedom!”
Donna shouted in a booming voice, raising one arm in the air doing
an imitation of Braveheart. “Will I see you tomorrow at Silke’s
birthday bash?”

“I
think
so, yeah,” Julia nodded. “Have a
nice evening!” She went into the kitchen to get her bag from her
locker. Everybody was gone, and when she got to the first floor,
Martin was the only person there.

“Have Marco
and Silke left already?” Julia asked,
secretly wanting to know something else.

“Yeah, Donna and you were the last of the
Mohicans.”

“Okay.” She
tried not to feel empty because Michael had left without saying
goodbye.
“See you on Monday. Have a great
weekend!”

On the bus
home, she called Gaby to invite her
over
for dinner. “I really need to vent, and you can be my sounding
board. All day I’ve been walking on eggshells. My nerves are shot.
What have I ever done to deserve working at the same store as Mr.
Dickwad?”

“I’ll be
there,” Gaby promised. “I’m still
stuffing my face with pastries at Tomaselli’s with Tamara
and Axel. What time are you guys having dinner?”