Page 25 of Sheep Calm and Merry On
He really needed to get some friends who were less good at giving him shit.
Two thirty came around, and a door opened deeper in the building. A woman of fortyish came out, dressed in dark slacks and a purple sweater that looked like cashmere. She smiled. “Mr. Romano. Good to see you again.”
Joe shook her hand and she ushered him back to her office. “Hi, Ms. Kelly.”
“It looks like Mr. Taylor isn’t here yet. I’ll let Shawna know to send him in when he arrives. Just have a seat.”
Like Joe’s ass wasn’t numb from sitting already. But he sat.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “You found him, I guess.”
Ms. Kelly dropped into her wheely desk chair and rolled a few feet with the impact. “Do you know how hard it is to find people who don’t have Facebook these days?”
Joe snorted. He didn’t know from experience but couldn’t say he was surprised. Phonebooks were just a hazy memory of his childhood. Could you look up a private cell number?
“About four-months-long hard?” he suggested.
Ms. Kelly dipped her head in acknowledgement and smiled. “Something like that. There’s no point going through all this without Mr. Taylor.” She waved at the pages on her desk with an apologetic little shrug. “Can I get you anything to drink while we wait?”
Joe opened his mouth to decline, not wanting to put her out just because this Austin Taylor guy couldn’t keep an appointment, but now that she mentioned it. “Water would be nice.”
She nodded and turned to pour him a glass from the pitcher behind her desk.
Joe’s phone buzzed in his lap and Starling’s latest text popped up on the screen. So… is he?
Figuring such a question was better ignored than addressed, Joe turned back to the lawyer.
She passed his drink across the desk, and as Joe took his first sip, she asked after his business.
It had been a year and a half since Joe’s life completely imploded, leaving him without a fiancé, home, or job. It hadn’t been the most ideal circumstances to open his own tree-trimming and landscaping business, but at least he had a few contacts willing to hire him on faith and share his details with their friends. Even his mom gave him an assist and hired him to spruce up some of her properties in preparation for the market.
Fortunately, the weather had cooperated for today’s meeting—it had been raining on and off all day, leaving everything soaked. Not ideal for yard maintenance or tree doctoring.
Business wasn’t exactly booming, but Joe had a steady stream of work and enough of a cash inflow he wasn’t worried about paying the bills.
He told Ms. Kelly as much as he awkwardly sipped his water and wondered why this Austin Taylor guy couldn’t show up on time.
Her cell rang and she answered it with an apologetic smile. Whatever she was talking about was, apparently, not so confidential that Joe couldn’t overhear. Or maybe she just wasn’t worried about it, since her comments about having sent the email and “Did they read the document and notice subsection 2b?” were so generic as to tell Joe nothing.
His phoned buzzed once again in his lap, and he looked down in time to see a notification that Garden Depot had uploaded a new reel to Insta he might enjoy.
Before he could even think about it, he unlocked his phone and tapped. His screen was suddenly filled with Paul standing in the middle of the greenhouse. He was still beautiful, still had Ken-doll-perfect looks and blond hair that begged to be tousled. His teeth practically glinted when he smiled for the camera and made jokes about how luscious their plants were.
A giggle from behind the camera told Joe who was holding it.
So Paul was also still seeing Nikki, the mutual coworker he’d left Joe for.
Joe could have forgiven Paul for falling out of love with him. It happened. But fucking someone else in their bed and doing so bad a job sneaking around that everyone at Garden Depot knew about it before Joe found out?
Yeah, he couldn’t forgive Paul that one.
Joe aggressively turned off his phone, ignoring the notifications from the group chat. Gavin might have turned off his phone so he could focus on English, but Meg, Will, and Alex shared an afternoon spare and were happy to keep pestering him with questions.
As if Joe could tell them about Taylor’s relative attractiveness when the man wasn’t even here. Even though their appointment was ten minutes ago now.
Joe and Ms. Kelly were back to making awkward small talk as the clock ticked closer to the hour when her PA rapped once on the door and swung it open.
“Mr. Taylor is here,” she announced, and Joe and Ms. Kelly suddenly transported straight into a porn film.
