“And you’ve used it, what, once?”

I shrug sheepishly. He’s right. Tinder isn’t my thing. “Once. Yeah.”

“Good luck, then, working with her every day. That’s got to really suck.”

Another strike flies over the plate. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. This pep talk was awesome. Now I’m fired up for the nine-to-five grind.”

“Life could be worse,” he says, with an evil grin. “You could be in the ER with a mustard jar up your butt.”

19

On the scale of suckage, working with Natalie isn’t as bad as, say, smacking your thumb with a hammer. Nor does it bite as hard as whacking your knee on the entertainment center you just installed in a newly renovated Tribeca loft for a famous director, and his superstar actress wife.

Sure, smacks and whacks are an occupational hazard, but the last time I nailed myself twice in one day . . . wait, that sounds really dirty. Anyway, suffice to say, the ice age I’m not enjoying with Natalie is throwing me off my game at work. But I do my best to shove all thoughts of her from my mind so I can finish the Tribeca job.

It’s not easy. Natalie seems to occupy an annoyingly large portion of my mental real estate these days, and I’d like to evict her.

At the very least, I’d like to relocate her to the just coworkers portion of my brain.

When I return to the office to drop off the tools, Natalie is chatting on the phone. “Perfect. I’ll be there tonight. Sixty-Fourth and Lex. I really appreciate you thinking of me for the extra class.”

I raise an eyebrow and give her a thumbs-up. Call me Encyclopedia Brown, but I’m guessing she scored another karate gig. When she hangs up, I hold my arms out wide. “Kicking ass and taking names?”

She smiles, and all is right with the world. In her grin, I can feel the tension that’s been strung between us since Vegas seep away. We’re back to who we were before. We’re the coworkers who support each other. We’re the colleagues who eat spicy food together. We’re all good. “Yes. Another dojo has me on its substitute list. I’m thrilled.”

I narrow my brow. “Substitute list? You should be doing your own classes.”

She shrugs. “It’s fine. It works for me.”

“But how is that helping you with your videos and building your rep as a teacher? People should want to come to your classes, not stumble upon you when you’re filling in for some schmo who can’t make his own session.”

“It works for me, Wyatt,” she says crisply, and maybe I’m not back in her good graces after all.

“I just think you’re selling yourself short.”

“Don’t worry about it. Really, I’m fine.” She taps the pile of checks on her desk. “Some bills are due. I filled out the checks. If you could just sign them, I can get them in the mail on my way out.”

She hands me a pen, and I feel like I’ve been scolded and sent to bed without supper. Maybe I spoke out of line. I can’t read her anymore. I bend lower to sign, and I’m so close I can smell her. I swallow dryly, remembering what it was like to run my nose along her hair, to drag my lips over her skin, to breathe her in. I curse myself for never going down on her that night. What was I thinking? My mouth waters as I sign the checks and dream about kneeling under the desk between her legs and burying my face under that skirt. Tasting her sweet heat. Licking her, sucking her, lapping her up.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“What’s wrong?”

My dick is an iron spike and my brain is a carousel of images of your supremely tantalizing naked body, that’s what’s wrong. But we can solve it easily if you’d spread your legs and let me eat you out right the fuck now.

“Nothing’s wrong. All good.” I wave a hand dismissively, and try to position myself so my hard-on isn’t visible. A memory flickers, of Natalie telling me on the pinball machine that she used to check me out at work. I wonder if she still does. If her eyes are on my crotch once more, and if she’s pleased with the effect she’s had. If she’d like to do anything to ease the ache I feel right now. And most of all I wonder if she feels the same.

“Last check,” she says, sliding the final one in front of me, her hands dangerously near to my dick. “It’s my paycheck.”

I lift the pen over the signature line and begin to give it my John Hancock, when I flinch. The amount is wrong.

“What’s that?” I point to the check. I’m not thinking about what’s between her legs anymore. I’m thinking about what she’s doing with my business.

“We call it a check. It’s like a promise for money. You take it to the bank and they give you cash in that amount,” she says, and her tone is half-playful, like maybe we’ve gone back to getting along.

But my question wasn’t so fundamental. “I meant, why is that the amount? It’s wrong,” I say, tapping the black ink she filled in earlier.

“That’s my normal pay.”

I heave a sigh as an unfamiliar anger courses through me. I’m not a guy with a temper. I don’t get pissed off. But if she’s doing what I think she’s doing, this makes me fucking mad. “I gave you a raise, Natalie.” My voice is strung tight. “Did you forget?”

She lifts her face. Her eyes look guilty, but her words seem certain. “I didn’t forget. I just figured it no longer applied.”

I press my hands onto her desk and stare her down. “We annulled the marriage, not the employment.”