Page 15 of The Heart You've Borrowed

“You don’t have to do that. I have a little money that I can use on the food trucks until I get paid.” I shook my head.

“I know how much you love to cook Charlie. We can go after work today. Don’t worry about it. I’m just happy you’re here and safe.” He kissed my temple before leaving my new office.

I look around the room again and sit behind my desk. I’ve never had my own office before. At my last job, I just had a desk in a small cubicle with twenty other employees around me. It’s kind of nice being by myself. I work better alone and not surrounded by other people. There’s a knock at the door and my eyes meet another man. This must be Jackson.

“You must be Jackson.” I smiled at the man.

“Yes ma’am.” His southern accent is strong.

“I’m Charlie. At my last job, I did some bookkeeping but it would be nice to have a little refresher.” I smiled at him.

“Pleasure to meet you, Charlie. Of course, let’s get started. Everything is pretty straightforward, the only tricky thing will be the invoices and requests. Those will take up most of your time Mondays and Fridays. Don’t ask me why but most of our customers always order on those days.” He laughs.

“Well I’m ready and excited to work so let’s get to it.” I smiled back as he pulled a chair behind the desk and sat next to me.

For the next hour, he goes over everything. I learn their bookkeeping program pretty fast and we move on to how to input orders into the system and how to send out the invoices. After an hour I feel pretty confident and think I can do it on my own. I learned that most of the customers will just email for orders instead of calling, guess they’re all like me and hate talking on the phone.

“Well, you sure do learn fast, little miss.” He laughs, making me laugh too.

“Yeah, I’m a pretty competitive person and don’t like doing things half-assed.” I laughed.

“Yeah, Lio might have mentioned that.” He shook his head.

“Figured he would, he used to always tease me about it.”

“It’s a good trait to have. Well, I will leave you on your own. If you need one of us just press the one on the phone and someone will pick up. I’m ordering lunch today for all of us so just call down before noon and I will order you something. Also if you ever need a girlfriend to talk to my wife is very excited to have a new friend. She stays home with our two littles so she doesn’t get out much.” He laughed.

“That sounds good to me. I could use a friend here.” I smiled at him.

After he leaves I spend a few minutes looking through the work email. There are about a dozen orders sitting in the inbox and I get to work. I take my time with the first few, flipping through my notes to make sure that I am doing everything right. After the first few I get the hang of it and get them done in no time. This isn’t the hardest job in the world but I want to make sure it’s done right. Lio poured his whole heart and life into this business. I'll be damned if I mess it up for him.

I jump into the bookkeeping program and get to work there. It’s a mess, thank god I came when I did. I don’t know how they have survived this long without me. It takes me a few hours to get it taken care of. I set a daily reminder on my computer to check on it and make sure it’s all in order at the end of each day. By noon my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten today, I grab the phone and call down to the guys. Jackson takes my order and I sit back in my chair. I turn on the TV and pick some true crime movie that sounds interesting. I listen to it while I try to organize the office. I’m usually not the cleanest person in the world but I have to have my workspace spotless. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to do a little redecorating. I move a few things around and make a list of things that I need here. I definitely want to get a few wall pieces to brighten the place up a bit and some new notebooks and highlighters and pens. Lio used to always make fun of me in high school for how many cute little notebooks I had and all my highlighters. But it helps me feel like my life is organized. After about thirty minutes of organizing Lio comes in with a bag of food. My mouth waters when the smell hits me. I am going to be in heaven with all the food here.

“Hungry?” He asks with a smile on his face.

“Starving.” I laughed. He hands me my bag of food and takes a seat in front of the desk. I pull the food out and dig in. This is heaven.

“God, how is all the food here so good?” I ask with my mouth full.

“It’s Texas, everything here is good.” He laughed.

“Thank you for the food. I forgot we didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Yeah, I realized that a few hours ago.” He laughed.

“I need to make a list of what I need to buy tonight after work. I won’t get much, just a few things. You know me, I’m pretty easy and don’t need a whole lot.” I shrugged.

“No, you’ll get whatever you need today. We don’t get paid for two weeks, you came on the off week but I will get you whatever you want and need. We can even grab you some new notebooks and highlighters too.” I laughed so hard that the food I was chewing came flying out of my mouth.

“Are you okay!” Lio shot up from the chair.

“Yes, yes I’m fine sorry.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

“What is so funny?” He asks with a confused look on his face, I held up the list with notebooks and highlighters.

“You know me so well.” I laughed again.

“God, Charlie you freaked me out. But yes I know you better than you probably know yourself.” He shook his head, laughing.

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