Page 132 of Smooth Sailing

He heard Diana stifle a laugh.

Time to get past Annie being a total ditz.

“Where’s the mailbox?” he asked Di.

She went around the reception desk, opened a drawer, got a key chain with a small key on it and handed it to him. “It’s on the outside of the building, to the right of the door if you’re facing it.”

“Gotcha,” he muttered and took off.

By the time he got back with the mail, Annie was gone, and Diana had lost her bag and was at the door to her studio waiting for him.

He walked to her, and she lifted a hand for the mail when he got close, so he handed it to her.

“How does that woman run a business?” he asked as he followed her into her studio while she sifted through the mail.

“Not very well, before she hired me. I’ve had occasion to have a gander through her personnel files and she had a lot of other me’s that didn’t last long, likely because she drove them batty. She drove me batty too, at first. Then I offered to take over the admin, if she upped my salary a bit to add paying me for those responsibilities. I got what was fair for taking on more work, she doesn’t have to worry about it, the business runs smoother, and I like the autonomy her being scatterbrained gives me.”

There it was again.

Di taking care of someone.

But at least she got paid for it this time.

She stopped sifting through the mail and headed across the space, still talking.

“We have a spreadsheet we share about projects, so I know what she’s working on, samesies with me, progress, target completion dates, estimates of work, invoices sent, invoices paid. This way, if she remembers to check, she knows I’m getting work done, and we’re getting paid. She has a bookkeeper, so I don’t have to deal with money, outside depositing a check or making sure we got the PayPal or Venmo payment. I don’t have set hours. I have set projects. And I dig that.”

“Sounds cush, babe,” Hugger replied, watching her sit at a small desk facing out at a diagonal in the corner, away from all the mess of easels, tables, lamps, pots, jars, jugs and instruments.

But he was feeling even more shit because she wasn’t only doing what she liked doing, she was free to do it without a lot of hassle and someone breathing down her neck.

Sure, the woman he just met in the reception area was flighty as all fuck, but if she mostly got on with her thing, and let Di get on with hers, that, to Hugger, was the perfect work situation.

He knew, because that was his work situation.

Di had grabbed a letter opener, and she was slitting open the mail.

Hugger headed over to the chair he’d put by the window.

He settled in, boots up on the sill, eyes aimed out the window, and he stayed that way until Di left her desk and went to the easel that held the painting she was working on.

“I thought we’d got to Taco Chelo for lunch today,” she stated.

Of course she thought they’d go for fucking tacos.

He felt his lips tip up, but he stopped doing that when he turned his attention to her.

“How long you worked here, babe?” he asked.

“Four years,” she replied to the painting. “Since I quit school because of the situation with Dad, it took me an extra year to get my bachelor’s, even going to summer school. With the internship, it added another six months to getting my masters. Annie’s my first job in my field.”

So she had a master’s degree.

Shit.

“Landed on your feet,” he muttered.

She stopped rolling a Q-tip in her mouth and smiled at him.

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