Free Payce's Passions by Piper Kay Page A

us.
    Serge’s mouth drops open, and I thought he was going to drop the tray. I give him a wink, letting him know it’s okay.
    “Why you of course, boss. I have to say, you have quite the cheerleader here.” I jump in, trying to save him. “Serge was telling me about the community volunteer programs that you and your place here are involved in. Pretty amazing stuff. I saw the framed awards on the wall downstairs so I asked Serge here about it.” That should have him covered now.
    “We do what we can to help out. Did you order yet?” He glances at me then to Serge.
    “I did. Do you have time to join?” I ask Braxton.
    “Not really today, but I’ll sit for a second. Serge, get me a coke please.”
    “On it big, bad boss man.” Serge does a little jump, both feet to one side and he clicks them together before spinning off. As he gets out of view from Braxton, he mouths ‘thank you’ to me and I nod.
    I shake my head and laugh. “You do drug test him, right?”
    “Absolutely, and he’s just a big handful of all natural adrenaline. It’s almost scary, isn’t it?” Brax laughs. “The man can work though, never forgets a thing. I like that.”
    “He’s quite a handful of something alright, I assumed he was on a big handful of Bennie pills though.” I start laughing, and Brax just shakes his head. “I like him, I really do, but if I had to work with him every single day, I’d probably spike his drinks with valiums or something.” I laugh, wiping my palms on my jeans.
    Brax shakes his head a lets out a laugh too, when Serge brings Braxton’s drink. “How long have you been here?” Brax asks me.
    “Not long. I asked for you when I came in, but they said you had car trouble or something.”
    “Yes, piece of shit car of mine. I need to replace a few things on it, but don’t have the time to mess with it much. I have a truck as a backup, but it’s a gas guzzler and I hardly drive it. Anyway got it started finally and made it here, not so sure I’ll make it home though.” He looks at his watch.
    “I’m pretty handy with a car, so if you’re ever stuck somewhere, give me a ring and I’ll come rescue you.” I bite the inside of my lip.
    “As much as this one gives me a hard time, I might have to take you up on that, Payce.”
    “I hope you do. I’ll bring the bike.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him and smile.
    “Still a tease, huh?” A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth.
    I shrug my shoulders. “It’s all in that damn image thing, I haven’t quite figured out how to lose it yet.”
    “It’s not always a bad thing.” He turns his head to the side. “Payce, I don’t mean to cut this short, but I’m late as hell and short staffed a manager, so it’s double duty for me. I saw your bike in the lot on the way in, so ran up for a quick hello. I had actually planned to sit down and eat, but duty calls.” He stands and reaches out to shake my hand.
    “I completely understand. Go handle your business Brax.” I take his hand to shake, holding a little too long. “We should make plans to get together sometime, I’ll show you the Harley.”
    “We’ll see.” He smiles and walks toward the stairway. 
    Still fucking ornery. Damn, I love it. Something else I love is the way he wears a pair of jeans. Shit, now that’s an ass . He walks out of sight.
    Sparky comes back. “I saw you oogling the bosses naughties.”

 
    Chapter Nine

     
    As soon as I get home from lunch, I’m on the computer knocking out the demo business stuff I never finished Friday. I slam through six bids and email them to the customer, then click over to my schedule. Looks like this week is gravy. No complaints here, after these seven day work weeks we’ve been running for over two months, I need a damn break.
    Besides pulling a few permits from the City of Houston, I only have a couple of small jobs to do. Four are concrete demo and grades and the other is a dig out. No sweat. The week after next, I’m on nothing but