Page 65 of Is It Casual Now?

“There’s not going to be any stopping you, is there?”

“Nope.” Jessie pulled Jamie to her feet and bounded off the moment Jamie was balanced on her own.

“I don’t know what to do, Jessie.” Jamie called out in the now empty room. She hadn’t paid attention to which direction Jessie had fled. The kitchen or the bedroom?

“Yes, you do. You’ve known for ages.” Jessie returned from the bedroom holding a pencil case large enough for Jamie’s head to fit inside, and a lined notepad.

“Oh shit. We’ve entered teacher mode.”

“Don’t you be giving myteacher modea hard time. How many times has it saved your butt?” Jessie sat crossed legged on the couch, the note pad in her lap and the pencil case on top.She pulled out a red pen and ruler and started lining up columns Jamie wasn’t brave enough yet to look at.

Jamie rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut.

Jessie wasn’t wrong about Jamie being rescued more times than she cared to admit. But the way Jessie attacked everything with clean lines and logical steps made Jamie’s skin itch as though she had brushed up against poison ivy.

Jamie enjoyed organization, but in her own way. And it was nothing like the boxed in idea of how things were supposed to be worked out and followed. The way Jessie did it, which of course was the way her parents had taught both them and their older brother, was so foreign that Jamie had never fully understood it.

“All right, time for a plan to get Jamie into a workplace that has moved forward from the 1970s.”

Jamie burst out laughing and sat next to her sister, leaning in and resigning herself to letting Jessie create a plan that she may or may not follow. In the next few days, or at all.

Turned out it was only five days later when Jamie pulled the ridiculously clean and crisp plan out of her bag and laid it on the desk in front of her. The nine-to-fivers had left about fifteen minutes ago, and the other late shifters had gotten their next caffeine hits.

Jamie would be left alone for at least the next hour, all things willing.

With a resigned but determined sigh, Jamie opened the paper and began with step one on Jessie’s plan. Forty-five minutes later, Jessie called Jamie’s cell, causing Jamie to jump and curse aloud.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Just checking in to see how things are going.”

“Well…” Jamie debated whether or not to keep the information to herself, but really, there would be no point. Jessie knew just about everything in her life. “I’ve started step one of your master plan.”

“Damn it.” Jamie was certain Jessie pursed her lips on the other end of the phone line.

“Damn it? I thought you wanted me to follow your precious little step-by-step list of ways to box my life in.”

“Hey!” Jessie replied, but Jamie knew she wasn’t truly offended, just like Jamie had only half meant what she had said. “And yeah, I did. But seeing as you are only on step one and it’s been almost a week, I’m guessing something else happened to push you over the edge?”

Jamie shrugged even knowing Jessie couldn’t see it, because she floundered for words to express how she felt about the entire thing. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

“What happened?”

“I messaged Siena when I still hadn’t heard from her and asked about the dates.” Jamie continued to scroll through emails, sorting them into the ones she’d attack tonight and the ones that could easily wait a few more days to deal with.

“And no answer?”

“Oh no.” Jamie laughed humorlessly as she leaned back in her desk chair. “The answer was the problem.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yep. She hasn’t been able to find a time that works for Piper and Bunny yet, but will let me know as soon as sheblah blah blah. In other words,good luck, I’ve now wasted as much of your time as I feel like you’ve wasted of mine whenever you dare to print anything even nearing the truth about my clients.”

“I doubt that’s what she’s doing,” Jessie said softly.

“I love you, Jessie, but you have no idea what this industry is like. It’s riddled with the worst people you could imagine.”

“Well, no wonder you’re so desperate to get work and recognition in the area.”

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