Page 8 of Love Bank
I didn’t even need to be in the sample room today. I told Keva I was going to clean while we had a lull in appointments, but in fact, I was eyeing that one fridge in the corner like there was a snake in it, ready to jump out at any moment. The thing is, I’d already seen the one-eyed snake yesterday. It was the juicy outcome I was eyeing now.
Might as well have been liquid gold for what I could sell it for on the open market. I was practically gleeful with the number of zeros I could ask for and receive with that physical description attached to his swimmers. Yet part of me felt a bit possessive of his junk too. I’d been there when he’d—well, you know—and that made those swimmers mine, didn’t it? I mean, if you lick the cupcake, it’s yours. If I saw him shoot the load, it’s mine. Right?
His sample was just sitting in the far refrigerator all innocent, like it hadn’t come from the firehouse of the hottest man known to God’s green earth while I’d stood there staring. I didn’t have a firm plan for his sample or anything. I didn’t even know why I was staring at the fridge. I just couldn’t seem to pull myself away, entranced, mesmerized, bewitched.
I replayed the moment over and over, unable to look away, even in my mind. That jaw, that neck, the muscles straining. It all added up to the most erotic thing I’d ever witnessed. Hell, it might even spur me on to see what the big deal was with porn.
Feeling the back of my neck, I realized I’d broken out into a sweat just thinking about him. My mystery man.
“You’re ridiculous, Lucy,” I muttered.
I stomped over to the fridge and opened it up with such vigor all the samples rattled on their wire shelves. And there it was, in all its glory. Sample #264.
Yep. Still there.
I slammed the door shut and exited the room before I could do anything crazy. Like touch it. Or open it. Or let it mingle with my frozen eggs.
Instead, I headed for the front desk and did something even crazier: I found his file on the computer, organized by sample number. Just as I was about to click on the sample and open up his identifying details, the front door swung open and the bell rang out like a shotgun. I jumped so high I almost slipped right off the rolling desk chair.
Dammit! I was destined for a heart attack with the way things were going.
“This here the fertile place where I can donate my seed?”
A man stood in the doorway, scratching his belly, his appearance doing nothing to reassure me my fertility clinic would actually make it longer than three more months. The guy wasn’t even wearing a shirt, just a pair of jeans that I could tell had already been bought, worn, and sold in a thrift cycle a few times too many. Sturdy suspenders held up the pants, thank the Lord, but did nothing to hide the belly. He had the graciousness to blush, highlighting the greasy blond hair that had seen better—cleaner—days.
I shot to my feet, sending the chair rolling. “I’m so sorry, sir. No shirt, no service.” I held out my hand to a sign behind me on the wall.
We reserve the right to refuse service.
His hopeful face fell into a pout only a mama could love. “Oh come on now, lady. I need a break. I been in the damn prison since yesterday. I need a few dollars to get me on the road out of town. Your sheriff has a thing against me.”
I nodded sympathetically while I stewed on this information. He spent the night in prison? The damn thing hadn’t been open even twenty-four hours before we got our first recently released inmate beating down our door wanting to beat off for a few measly dollars.
“Oh, I bet he does. He’s not the lenient kind.” I wiped the smile from my face and let that one eyebrow rise real slow like. You don’t work a few years in a hospital as a nurse without learning how to throw your weight around when necessary. “And neither am I. Move along, sir.”
He slapped his thigh with a meaty hand in frustration. The complaints and whining were forthcoming, I could feel it. Time to de-escalate in a hurry.
“Seriously? Can’t you make an exception just this one dang time?”
My hand slid across the desk to pick up the receiver to the phone. In my infinite wisdom, I’d programmed the sheriff’s office into our speed dial. One touch of a button and they’d be alerted to a problem brewing on Brinestone Way.
“I wish I could, but Chief Waldo is set to come do an inspection of this place any minute now. I’d hate for you to have a run-in with the man so soon after your release.”
A little white lie never hurt anyone, did it?
The man’s face turned pale and he backed away, his heel hitting the front door and sending it flying out and then back in to hit him in the backside, bell a’jingling like it was Christmas morning and Santa’s sleigh had arrived.
He spun and ran out the door, his suspenders working overtime to keep him decent as he made his way down the sidewalk. I lost sight of him after he went past the Cat Society.
“Miss Eureka? Is he gone?” Keva poked her head into the front office, having smartly hidden herself away when she first heard the man come in.
I waved her in and she came up behind me. My whole body practically vibrated with rage. And fear, if I was being honest. My dream of owning a fertility clinic was going down the fallopian tubes because of that damn prison, I was certain of it. All my life’s savings went into retrofitting this place and making it a high-class establishment to help the citizens of Auburn Hill create the children they so desperately wanted. Sure, we were a small town, but we had morals and ethics and standards. Inmates flooding the place with sperm was not how I envisioned things.
“I’m so sorry, Keva. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m going into my office now to see who runs the prison and have a word with him or her. In the meantime, if that man comes back, you don’t hesitate. Call the sheriff’s office and get them down here.”
Her eyes opened comically wide. Come to think of it, she wore that expression a lot around here. “What are you going to do?”
My breathing was coming fast and furious. Ideas pinged across my brain as I searched for a way to fix this. A way to still have my dream. My finger found its way to my mouth, tap-tap-tapping out a rhythm against my lips while I thought it through.
