Hook Me Up (Business Of Love Book 3) Page 2

  The relationship was a bit strained between Hailey and her mother, who was well off financially and didn’t understand why her daughter wanted to set her own path and find independence rather than just accept her help.

  But that was one of the best things about Hailey. Sure, she could be a little naive and too trusting, but she was determined as hell to build a life that was hers. On her own.

  Even though I didn’t see how the call-center job fit into that equation, it didn’t matter. She was my best friend and I had her back.

  “Don’t be too hard on Hannah.” I put the car in park and gave her a knowing look. “Maybe she didn’t know how much of a tornado this guy was.”

  “Hannah doesn’t need you to protect her.” Hailey opened her car door and stepped out, but she paused to glance back at me over her shoulder. “Thank you for saving me. I was about ready to just start walking home.”

  “In those shoes?” I looked pointedly at her ankle boots, which had thick but relatively high heels on them.

  “I don’t think you quite understand how insufferable he was, Jack.”

  “If you were willing to walk in those, I’ll take your word for it.”

  She smiled. She had a pretty smile. I’d always thought so. Full lips. Deep pink. Large, white straight teeth. “What will I do when you’re gone, Jack?”

  I said the same thing I’d been saying when she expressed sadness about me moving to New York City in a couple of weeks. “Come with me.”

  Her smile slowly ebbed away. “My life is here. My sister. My job.”

  “That job is—”

  “Don’t.”

  I bit my tongue.

  “You’re the one leaving, Jack. Not me.” She got out of the car and leaned over to say goodnight through the open passenger window. “Have a good rest of your night.”

  I thought about the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the Jacuzzi on my patio in her red string bikini and delightfully perky boobs. “I will. Goodnight, Hails.”

  “Goodnight Jack.”

  Brittney, the girl in the red string bikini, spent the night in my bed, and when she left at the crack of dawn, she left the smell of her coconut lotion on my sheets and a pair of panties under the bed frame. She told me to call her, which I wouldn’t, and then she blew me a kiss and walked out of my place, leaving me to do what I’d been doing for the last two days.

  Pack.

  I stood at the doorway to my home office at seven thirty in the morning and sipped a black cup of coffee as I considered where to start. The room had become a bit of a mess in the chaos of taking on new clients in New York before moving there. My matchmaking business had definitely been keeping me on my toes these past few years, but now things were on a whole new level of crazy.

  Everyone wanted love.

  And they seemed to want it now. And I was their guy.

  I wasn’t complaining but the prospect of packing up my office was more than a little daunting. Which was why I stood at the threshold mourning what my day was going to look like until someone rang the buzzer to my suite. I paced to the front door and called into the buzzer system. “Who is it?”

  “Who do you think?” Hailey’s warm voice filled the speaker.

  I grinned. “What are you doing here? Didn’t get enough of me last night?”

  “Buzz me up, Jack.”

  I did.

  She’d see herself up, so I went back into my study and pretended to have already started packing so that when she did walk in with two lattes and a white pastry bag from our favorite cafe, Deliziè, I looked like I’d been hard at work and had earned those treats.

  Hailey leaned a hip against the doorframe and looked around. “Have you just started the office?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to pack it up too soon in case I needed something in here.”

  She stepped in and handed me my latte. She set the pastry bag down on my desk while I sipped at the decadent foam on my latte, rolled it open, and helped herself to a chocolate croissant inside. “It’s going to be so weird when this isn’t your apartment anymore. We have so many memories here.”

  Money hadn’t been an issue for me for a long time. I’d offered to let Hailey move in here when I moved out, but she had steadfastly refused. That pride of hers was always getting in the way of good things. I would have only charged her what she was paying to live with her sister. It would benefit us both. She’d have a nice, luxurious pad, and I’d have a place to crash when I came back to Nashville to visit.

  And I’d still be able to put that hot tub to good use.

  Hailey made a lap around my office. As she walked around, she trailed her fingers along the edges of the bookcases and sipped her latte. She paused at a collection of books and rapped her knuckle against the creased spines. “W. Parker, huh?”

  “I haven’t read them.”

  “Uh huh. Sure you haven’t. I bet you get half of the moves you use on these bikini-clad women from these books. He’s a romantic genius.”

  “He?” I asked skeptically. “Please. W. Parker is a woman. Nobody will change my mind. The scenes are too intimate. And the prose is too—”

  “Careful.”

  “I was going to say smooth.”

  “Sure you were.” Hailey pulled one of the books free and flipped it over to read the back. I watched as her brown almond-shaped eyes slid back and forth across the page. The corner of her mouth curled in a little smile and she glanced up at me from beneath her dark brows. “I’m going to borrow this.”

  “Keep it.”

  Hailey opened the flap on her shoulder bag, the same obnoxious and worn-out brown satchel she carried every day to work that housed her day planner, lunch—most likely a ham and cheese sandwich, as per usual—and girly items. I made a mental note that she needed a newer, nicer one. One that didn’t make her look like an Indiana Jones wannabe.

  My W. Parker book vanished into the depths of the hideous bag and Hailey turned to me before leaning against the windowsill at her back. She sipped her latte as she was backlit by sunlight. It made her brown hair look far lighter than it was. “Thank you again for saving me last night.”

  “Is that what the coffee and the scone is for?”

  She eyed me mischievously. “How do you know there’s a scone in the bag?”

  “Well,” I said, moving to my desk to peer into the bag, “I know chocolate is your favorite. And you know vanilla and orange scones are mine.” I plunged my hand into the bag and pulled out an icing-drizzled citrus-smelling delicacy. “You’re a good woman, Hails.”

  She laughed. “Chuck wouldn’t agree with you.”

  “Did you tell him to pound sand before you bailed?”

  “Pretty much.” She set her coffee down on the windowsill and ran her fingers through her hair. It was still slightly wet from her morning shower.

  Hailey had a committed morning routine. She’d always get up at the crack of dawn, make coffee, and read a chapter or two of a book. Then she’d make herself a piece of toast with peanut butter and sliced apples—or banana if she felt inclined. Next, she’d shower and get herself dressed for work. It was always something extremely business casual. Like today, she wore a pair of black straight-leg pants, black ankle boots with a low heel, and a light blue blouse tucked in.

  The buttons, naturally, were done all the way up to the collar.

  Always such a good girl, I thought to myself as Hailey pulled her hair up in a messy bun.

  She never wore her hair down to work. Not even once. I’d know. She stopped by my place damn near every morning on her transit route to the office up the street from my apartment.

  “Are we still on for dinner tomorrow night?” Hailey asked.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely. Do you think I would spend my last night in Nashville with anyone else?”

  “I’m sure you considered trading me in for the girl in the red bikini.”

  I rolled my eyes and moved toward her. I took both her hands in mine and looked deep into her warm brown e
yes. If she had been facing the sun, I would have been able to see those pretty streaks of hazel and gold in her irises. “Don’t be silly, Hails. You’re my MVP. Always will be.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I’d better be.”

  Chuckling, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Always.”

  Hailey glanced at the light brown men’s leather watch on her wrist. “I’d better get out of here.”

  I let go of her hands. “Wouldn’t want to be less than twenty minutes early for your shift.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. “Employers appreciate punctual employees, okay?”

  “Yeah. Just think. If you keep this up, maybe they’ll upgrade you to a brand-name headset instead of those shitty knockoffs they keep ordering you guys.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Jackson,” she said as she shouldered the strap of her bag and picked her coffee up from the windowsill.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I held up both hands like she was pointing a gun at me. “You’re right. I don’t need to be going and making your day any worse than it already is. You have to answer phone call after phone call and deal with shitty, entitled customers. And on a Sunday. There should be a law against that, you know?”

  She rolled her eyes and didn’t laugh at my joke. She smiled though, and that was enough for me. “We can’t all live the dream, Jackson.”

  Chapter 3

  Hailey

  “I’ve been on hold for fourteen minutes,” my afternoon caller said sharply into my ear. Those were the first words she said after I took her call. She had a shrill, nasally voice, and I could hear children shrieking as they played in the background.

  I told myself to be nice. She was probably an overwhelmed mother with nothing around to help her get her frustration out. I pictured her with frazzled hair and a lazy husband and ungrateful children, and it was easier for me to be sweet.

  “I apologize for your wait time. I know how inconvenient it can be to sit around on hold when you have other pressing things to do with your day. Let me help you fix your problem as quickly as possible so you can get off the phone and back to your day.”

  She was quiet on the other end.

  I had a way with words. At least that was what everyone had told me my entire life. My daddy used to say I could talk my way out of anything with him. I just thought he was an easy mark. But weren’t most fathers with their little girl?

  Hannah strongly disagreed. She’d never been able to weasel as much junk food or soda out of our father. He had a sweet spot for me, no pun intended.

  I supposed that was why I was the thicker sister.

  “That sounds fine,” the woman on the other end of the line said.

  I followed the process of qualifying customers and making sure they were who they said they were. I asked her name, her address, and the phone number associated with the mobile device she was calling about. She gave me all the information in clipped, abrupt answers, but I let her sour attitude roll right off my shoulders.

  While I waited for her account to load on my monitor, I glanced up at my cubicle buddy.

  Azira, my work friend and the only reason I still maintained any of my sanity in this job, flashed me a dazzlingly white smile. She rolled her eyes and made talking motions with her hand, suggesting the customer talking in her ear would not shut up.

  I stifled a giggle and looked back at my monitor. “So tell me about why you’re calling, Sharon,” I said.

  Sharon, my customer, launched into a furious rant about warranty protection on her three-year-old phone. “My son is reckless. He drops his phone all the time, and even though we tell him to put a case on it, he never listens.”

  “Teenagers,” I said knowingly.

  “He’s ten.”

  “Oh.”

  Right. Parents buy their kids two-thousand-dollar phones these days.

  “Anyway,” Sharon continued, “he dropped his phone a couple of days ago and smashed the shit out of the screen. It won’t work. The screen is on but there’s no response to touch. And the glass is sharp.”

  No shit. “So how can I help you?” I asked. In other words, I was asking her what solution she wanted. Did she want to upgrade to a new device? She was well out of her contract and could do so. Did she want to contact the manufacturer and pay out of pocket for repairs?

  “My husband said he purchased a warranty for the phone.”

  “Let me look into that for you.” I clicked, navigated, and came to the conclusion that no, he did not have an extended warranty. He had the usual manufacturer’s warranty, which was one year for software issues, but there was no protection in terms of physical damage. As delicately as I could, I explained this to Sharon.

  “Of course,” she spat into the phone. “Of course, you’re telling me we don’t have it! I want to speak to your manager. I know what we signed up for when we first got the phone.”

  “I can pull up your original invoice to make sure there isn’t a system error.”

  “You do that, sweetheart.”

  “Hold please.”

  I put her on hold and let her stew in it. At the same time, Azira took off her headset and hung it on the hook on the wall of her cubicle. She leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head. “Got a live one?”

  “Domestic housewife who insists her ten-year-old has an extended warranty for his three-year-old phone,” I said dryly.

  “And does she?”

  “Nope.”

  Azira ran her hands over her close-shaven scalp. Her textured hair was so short and in the tightest curls I’d ever seen. I’d always been a little envious of her boldness. Azira always rocked her natural hair and loved wearing bright colors to accentuate her dark skin. Today, she was wearing highlighter-yellow earrings and a pinstriped black blouse. As always, she looked like a badass bitch.

  And I looked like a timid doe-eyed intern.

  “Let her stew a bit longer,” Azira said when I went to take Sharon off hold. “Tell me about your blind date on Saturday. How’d it go? Was he cute?”

  I groaned.

  Azira leaned forward conspiratorially. “Oh girl, lay it on me. I want to hear all the deets.”

  I stretched up in my chair and peered over the walls of our cubicle to make sure management wasn’t on the floor. They never much cared if we socialized during work, so long as we hit our daily number of calls—which I always did. The coast was clear, so I leaned forward too. “His name was Chuck—”

  “I hate him already.”

  I laughed. “Hold on. Hold on. He spent the entire night talking about himself.”

  “As most boys do.”

  “And every time I said something, it was like he was surprised I was there.”

  Azira fake gagged. “Ew. You know what that is? That is an insecure man who only thinks women are for talking at and fucking. And chances are very high he’s a three-pump chump. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  I snickered. “I don’t think you’re wrong.”

  Azira twirled one of her big neon earrings. Tons of tiny little beads hung off of them and I could hear them whispering against each other like tiny wind chimes. “What about this other guy of yours? The one you’re always talking about. What’s his name?”

  “Jackson.”

  “Yes.” Azira’s eyes lit up. “That one. What’s the deal with you two?”

  I took a sip of my water and shrugged. “No deal. We’ve been best friends since I met him in the tenth grade.”

  “You don’t think it could be something more with a little nudge in the right direction? Show a bit of leg. Wear his favorite scent. Tell him how handsome he is. It’s that easy.”

  “Azira, I don’t have half as much game as you. Please. Don’t patronize me.”

  She rocked back in her chair and laughed. “Game? Girl, what are you talking about? I don’t have game. I just see something I want and go get it.”

  “Well, I don’t want Jackson.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “I
don’t,” I said firmly. “He’s my best friend. Why would I ever want to ruin something like that?”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t ruin it.”

  “Stop it.” I reached for the blinking red button on my phone. “I have to let Sharon down easy. Wish me luck.”

  Azira winked. “Good luck.”

  I pressed the button. It turned solid green. Screaming children filled my ears. “Sharon? Sharon, can you hear me?”

  “What took you so long?”

  “Our systems are in need of an update,” I lied smoothly. It was my go-to move. If you’re going to be rude to me, I’m going to wield what little power I have to inconvenience you. Be polite and, you know, human? And I’ll have you taken care of and you’ll get off the call with a smile.

  I pulled up her original receipt on my monitor and frowned. “I’ve reviewed your file. There was no purchase of extended warranty made because you didn’t purchase this phone from us.”

  “What?” she asked shrilly. “Of course I did! I’m on a contract with you! Where the fuck else would I have bought the phone?”

  “Well, I would assume you purchased it directly from the manufacturer by going into the store or ordering it online. They are who you would need to go to for warranty claims.”

  “I pay for a service through you. You will honor my warranty. What kind of company is this? As soon as my last contract expires, I’m transferring all my lines somewhere else.”

  “That’s your choice, ma’am,” I said less sweetly than I’d been speaking to her before. “But surely, you can understand how this is not my company’s responsibility. If you bought a car from Honda, would you expect Toyota to do your services for free?”

  “How dare you speak down to me?! Put me on with your manager. Immediately!”

  “Sure thing, Sharon.” I put her on hold.

  Azira was still watching me. She clicked her tongue. “Should’ve told her to get stuffed.”