Page 45 of In Plain Sight

I blinked at him. He wanted to hang out after work?

“Never mind.” He stood and brushed his hands off on his coveralls. “I’m sure you’re busy?—”

“No, I mean, I’m not busy. I’d like to, if you still want to,” I said, stumbling over my words as I stood too.

A smile tilted the corner of his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” A strange flutter moved through my chest, not quite nerves, but similar to excitement.

“I’ll go check in with Cass and see if we have any more appointments coming in tonight. Do you need to take a break? Maybe grab some water?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. Just need to make sure I watch where I put my elbows.”

He chuckled. “That’s usually a good idea. I’ll be back in a bit. Hopefully with good news.”

“Fingers crossed.”

I tried not to watch his ass as he walked toward the front of the shop but failed miserably. He had a nice one, even under his loose coveralls.

Jesus fuck. I was at work. Creeping on my coworker, who was also my de facto boss for the night, was the last thing I should be doing.

And he was straight.

I really needed to get over whatever this was before I said or did something that made him uncomfortable and gave away my secret.

Zander was a complete mystery to me, and I was having a hard time getting a read on him. I’d heard him mention his ex-wife a few times, but other than him being married at some point in the past, I knew next to nothing about his personal life.

The few times I’d gone out with him and the other guys at the shop, they’d told anyone interested in Zander that he was in a relationship, but I’d never heard him mention a girlfriend. I’d also never seen him chat anyone up. Was he seeing someone and he kept that part of his life separate from work? Or maybe hejust wasn’t into hookups, and I was reading into something that wasn’t a big deal.

Shaking my head, I fixed my attention on the pile of sockets that needed to be put away. At least some busy work would occupy my brain enough that I could hopefully stop spiraling.

It was annoying as fuck, but I seemed to have a lower threshold for stress compared to most people. Put me in a game, and I was cool as a cucumber. The pressure of competition helped narrow my focus until I was fully in the zone and the only things that existed in that moment were me, my opponents, and the puck.

But off the ice, I was a ball of overthinking anxiety. Little things that should roll off my back stung and cut deep, and it felt like my brain never stopped spinning. Most days I could handle the multiple streams of thought that always raced through my mind, but then there were days when it felt like my brain was my enemy and made me think about things I didn’t want to or forced me to remember things I’d rather forget.

I hated feeling like I couldn’t control my thoughts, and it had been like this for as long as I could remember. The overthinking sucked, but I’d learned to deal with it over the years.

My anxiety, on the other hand, was the absolute worst. I could probably handle it if it was predictable or a regular part of my life, but it wasn’t. It came in waves and always got worse when I was stressed. Some days I was fine and felt almost normal, but then there were days like today where I was a bundle of nerves and so jumpy it was like my body reacted to every little thing like it was a life-or-death situation.

Usually I’d talk to Jade about what was bothering me, but the shit I was struggling with wasn’t stuff I could put on my little sister. Even if telling her about my dating life didn’t ick me out, she didn’t know I was into men, so she’d be really confused when I told her one of the reasons I was such a mess rightnow was because I was crushing on two men and didn’t have a chance with either one of them. One was a faceless stranger on the internet who had a talent for getting me off, and the other was my straight coworker. Neither was an option, but that didn’t stop me from wanting both of them.

And it wasn’t like my Nice and Zander problems were the only things on my plate. I had shit going on with my mom and her boyfriend, with my friends, and I was still coming to terms with the revelation that I wasn’t just into being bossed around and told what to do, I fucking loved it.

I closed the lid of the wrench set harder than was necessary and put it aside. I needed to stop thinking in circles, or I was going to drive myself crazy before I clocked out.

“Looks like you can start shutting down,” Zander said, coming to stand next to me.

“Really?” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “We don’t lock up for another twenty minutes.”

“We’ll keep my station open in case someone comes in, but there’s no point in both of us waiting around.” He shrugged. “And it should make it quicker to get out of here if half the work is already done.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll get started on that.”

He shot me another shy smile. “Fingers crossed the next twenty minutes are as dead as the last half hour.”

I raised my hands and crossed my fingers. “Here’s hoping.”

The next twenty minutes were dead, and we managed to lock the doors on time.

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