Swap Out (13 page)

“If anyone could navigate someone else through a shit storm, my money’s riding on the guy who got shot six times in the back and then started arguing with the doctors to let him back on the bird as soon as the morphine wore off.”

He turns and starts walking out of my room, picking up my pack and slinging it over his shoulder on his way out.

“Come on, man, there’s a rock out there that thinks it’s the boss, and it’s past time we proved it wrong.” He pauses and looks back at me, then shrugs. “Unless you want to go teach the newbies the tricks of Accelerated Freefall. You don’t
exactly
suck at that.”

“Yo, Boss…” I rap my knuckles against the doorframe to Zoe’s office, and she groans.

“I
hate
it when you call me that,” she says, standing over her desk and shuffling some papers around, and I snort and then shut the door behind me.

“I know. That’s why I call you that.”

“Real nice, Luca.”

I plop down in the chair across from her, just watching the swing of her hair as she tosses it to hang over her other shoulder. All day long I’ve been desperate to kiss her again, to know what her answer is to the proposition I threw her yesterday. But she hasn’t said anything about the minefield we’re traversing after closing hours and neither have I, and I’m not going to bring it up now with her scowl tightening and eyes narrowing as she continues searching for some mystery document.

But as she bites her lip in frustration I can’t help but to notice that she looks good, gorgeous as always and not like she’s been feeling sick at all.

In fact, she looks a little
too
good…

Panic rushes through me and she suddenly straightens, vindictive glee flashing through her eyes as she holds up a piece of paper, and then she sways.

I’m up and she’s down, but at least she’s sitting in her chair, her hands gripping the edge of her desk for support.

I blink and exhale, then adjust my posture so it doesn’t look like I was about to leap over her damn desk.

“Did anyone see that?” she whispers, and after my eyes dart through the window to her office and find that everyone is still in the back, I shake my head. “Good,” she says, then blows out a breath and pops a peppermint in her mouth.

Guess that settles that.

I clear my throat and wander over to her outside window, scrubbing a hand over my face with my back to her before I meander back to the chair and re-take my seat.

“Still getting vertigo?”

“Yep,” she says, her words a little garbled around the candy. “And one of those jerks ate Chinese food for lunch and then brought his leftovers back here, oh so nicely plopping them down on the table in the break room. And when I find out who it was, they’re
fired
.”

I bite back my laugh, because it’s not really funny which is why I may have bitched him out and then made him throw it away in the outside dumpster as soon as I saw the Styrofoam container, but it…it’s a little funny.

“You can’t fire him over Chinese food, Zoe.”

“Yeah? Watch me.”

I snort, and she looks up from the papers she’s still studying, her brow furrowed.

“Was there—”

“Yeah,” I say and clear my throat. “And I hate to say this, seeing as how you’re in the middle of a war with your desk, but you’re gonna have to redo payroll.”

“What?” she screeches, dropping the stack of papers she was holding. “Was your check not deposited this morning? Because I finished it Fri—”

“Oh, it’s there,” I say and nod, and she sighs before leaning back in her chair. “But maybe you were too tired to realize when I said you should just pay me everyone else’s salary, I was joking.”

She crosses her arms, staring me. And looking a little smug. “That wasn’t a mistake.”

I lurch forward. “What?”

“That wasn’t a mistake,” she says, and I gape at her.

“You can’t just like…triple my salary, Zoe.”

“I didn’t,” she says, then shrugs. “I did switch you from salary to hourly, bumped your hourly rate to something more fitting and then accounted for overtime…and there you go.”

“Zoe!”

“
Luca
,” she says, grinning widely, and my temper flares.

“This isn’t fucking funny,” I growl, and she rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You always said a salary of fifteen an hour and forty hours a week was too low, and I agree. So you now make twenty-one, and if you don’t want a bigger bank account then stop working sixty hours a week.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do,” she cuts me off. “You consistently work twelve hours a day, five days a week. Sometimes more on days like Friday before last when you came in at 6:30 and didn’t leave until a quarter ‘til eight. And I know when you get here because there’s a time log on the security alarm.”

I grit my teeth and she sighs, tilting her head at me.

“You work hard, Luca. You do everything I ask, and sometimes before I ask it. You take care of inventory and manage the warehouse, you wrangle those other yahoos and you consistently go above the duties you applied for, which only included moving and setting up furniture. I didn’t expect to hire someone who was able to fix everything I need fixed, to find hidden hardwood floors and who can actually arrange a stage without me having to be there. Do you even know what I charge my clients when I send you out on a repair job at the properties we manage?”

“I don’t want to know,” I bite off.

“Forty for the first hour, thirty-five for every hour after.”

My eyes narrow. “Thanks for telling me exactly how much you’ve been screwing me over for the past year. Believe me, I really appreciate it.”

“Luca—”

I lean forward, my voice dropping menacingly. “If there’s something you want from me, this is not the way to get it.”

“If I wanted something from you, I’d already have it,” she says, and I look away, furious.

Then my head snaps back to her. “Are you trying to buy me off?”

She sucks in a breath, her eyes widening.

“It won’t work, Zoe,” I hiss. “I’d rather quit. I’d rather be on food stamps and live on the street than to take your money. There is
no
price for what you’re asking me to accept.”

“Get up,” she says darkly, then she does the same and threads her arms through her jacket.

“No! I’m not going anywhere until you explain to me why you’ve had some random personality swap and decided to pay me into your bankruptcy. What’s next? You going to start wearing jeans and flip flops to work?”

Her eyes dart to mine, livid and burning with rage, and she steps into her stilettos before grabbing her purse off her desk. My head follows her as she stomps out of her office, pausing to tell the crew that we’re running out on an errand but we’ll be back in an hour.

“You coming?” she asks as she pokes her head back into the office, and when I get up and follow her, she heads right to her car.

“Where are we going?”

“To show you that you don’t have the slightest clue of what you’re talking about.”

I get in the passenger side of her Enclave, Zoe’s hands tight on the steering wheel as she silently navigates us through town and then stops in the parking lot of a store. It’s not far, and before I’ve had time to get my temper under control she’s turning off the ignition, then points at me.

“You keep your mouth shut, smile and be nice, or so help me God, Luca, you will regret it.” She gets out of her car, and it takes me a second to follow.

My pulse is flying with anger, but my brow is furrowed at the small boutique that we don’t shop at. The stuff is fine, lamps and throw pillows and other kitschy things, but it’s not up to Zoe’s standard. I have no idea what the hell we’re doing here.

The bell on the front door dings and I realize Zoe is already going inside, and I huff and then follow her in, her face transformed into calm and almost excited.

“Zoe?” a woman calls out, then rushes over with a huge grin on her face. “I thought that was you!”

“Hi, Hailey,” Zoe says sweetly, warmly embracing the other woman like they’re the best of friends. She pulls back and is all lit up, then politely lays her hand on my forearm. “This is Luca, he’s new in town and I’m showing him around, and I thought we should swing by and say hi.”

“So nice to meet you,” Hailey says, and I offer her a smile as I shake her hand.

“Hailey and I grew up together,” Zoe tells me and I nod, a warning traveling up my spine from the tone in her voice. It’s venom laced in sugar.

“Our dads worked together for years,” Hailey says, then turns back to Zoe. “We used to tell everyone we were sisters, remember that?” she says, and Zoe laughs. But it’s so fake, so forced, I wonder how no one is calling the freaking cops.

“So tell me, how have you been?” Zoe asks, hooking her arm though Hailey’s as they begin to walk around the floor like they’re surveying things, but not really looking. I shove my hands deeper in my pockets, unable to resist constantly checking over my shoulder.

“Good, really good,” Hailey tells her. “Business is growing, oh, Mom and Dad just had their fortieth wedding anniversary.”

“Aww,” Zoe croons, and I barely resist cringing.

“I know! They re-did their vows, had a whole ceremony, it was so beautiful. I wish you could’ve been there.”

“I’m sure it was lovely,” Zoe tells her, and a bead of sweat slips down the back of my neck.

Something is seriously wrong.

“So, Luca,” Hailey says, turning to face me. “What do you think?”

I smile as warmly as possible. “You have a beautiful store.”

“Thank you,” she says, blushing a little. “I never did have the eye Zoe did, the talent in this woman! Goodness, what I wouldn’t give to know where she gets her drive from.”

I chuckle, seeing Zoe stiffen and then get it under control out of the corner of my eye. And when Hailey looks back to her, she is perfectly composed, but everything in me screams that she’s seconds away from a nuclear meltdown.

“Zoe,” I say gently, “didn’t we have—”

“Oh, shoot, you’re right,” she says, then pouts towards her friend. “I’m so sorry to do this, but we have a meeting with a client in a few minutes…”

“Please, I’m just glad you were able to stop by.” Hailey smiles, then wraps Zoe in a warm hug, pain slicing through my chest when I see Zoe squeeze her eyes shut in anguish. “It was so good to see you,” Hailey whispers, and Zoe nods. “Come back soon.”

Zoe pulls back, then nods. “Of course.”

“Nice to meet you,” I offer and Hailey nods, waving at us as we turn and walk towards the door to the parking lot. “Give me your keys,” I breathe once we’re outside, and Zoe passes them to me without muttering a word of resistance before getting in the passenger side.

I scoot her driver’s seat back, waiting until she buckles her seatbelt before backing out of the parking lot, mentally cringing as she waves at Hailey through the window before I pull away and out onto the street.

But instead of heading back towards the store, I speed the other direction: pointing us to the back roads where the small population of this town won’t be able to see and wonder and gossip. And my mind is so wrapped up in wondering what the hell that was, my body forgets; awareness jolting into me when I go to press a clutch that isn’t there because I’m not in my Stingray, I’m in Zoe’s freaking automatic SUV.

I curse and pay more attention to the road, taking my hand off her shifter so I don’t accidentally throw the transmission into neutral when muscle memory tells me to shift gears, my foot lifting off the accelerator and slowing down. I probably shouldn’t even be driving, especially not with Zoe in the car when I’m this unglued, but when I look at her to see if she’s in any better shape than I am, I stomp the brake.

Fucking knew it.

Tires bite and chew loose rocks as I pull off onto the shoulder, popping the shifter into park the moment I can before I turn to Zoe.

Her hand is splayed on her chest, her breaths shallow and too quick and she’s so far gone into her anxiety attack I don’t know how I’m going to pull her out of it without a needle to inject Diazepem directly into her veins. Except that I couldn’t anyway because she’s fucking pregnant and I can’t give her a damn thing, even if I had it.

“Zoe, Zoe look at me,” I tell her, taking her hand off her chest and putting it on mine. I turn her face towards me, making sure her eyes are locked on mine. “I need you to try to breathe,” I say and she immediately shakes her head no. “You can, in through your nose…come on we’ve done this before…”

She barely pulls in, and I do it with her, my other hand holding up three fingers, then two, then one before I slowly blow out through my mouth and she does the same.

“Good. Again.”

She shakes her head, barely getting out, “Can’t. Brea—”

“Yes, you can, just look at my eyes, Zoe, watch my eyes. I’m right here. Breathe in…” 4, 3, 2, 1. “And out…”

Her hand tightens on my chest, her nails digging into my skin in pure fear as she gasps for breaths she can’t find, and I don’t know what else to do.

I tug my dog tags out of my collar and wrap the chain around her hand, pressing the IDs into her palm.

“Feel that? Feel the—
breathe in, Zoe
—feel the engraving? Remember what that says? AF. Maroon—
out through your mouth, good
—the Superman School and the EMT and all that—
in, Zoe, good
—all that stupid stuff I did, all those things they trained me for and you called me a hero. Search and Rescue. I’m right here—
back out, Zoe
—I’m right here and you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you and you’re going to be just fine. Feel those tags, Zoe, hold them in your hand—
back in
—you love these tags, you like nothing more than to hold them, just like this—
blow out, you’re doing great, baby
—you hold them and you smile, you always smile, and I’ll—
back in, once more, you’re almost there
—and I’ll never take them off because of that, okay? I’ll never take them off.”