Free Reckless by Winter Renshaw Page A

for happy hour at Slate Bar.”
    “Have fun,” I mutter, turning my back toward her and grabbing another stack of files.
    “Good job today,” she says, lingering for reasons unknown.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    I feel her energy behind me.
    “I just wanted to say,” she says, “that I’m enjoying having you around.”
    I stop filing and turn to look at her again.
    “The last temp we had,” Keegan continues, “did nothing but complain the whole time. You never complain. And you let me vent to you this morning about my weekend, and that meant so much to me. So thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “This is going to be a really weird question, and I’m not asking you this, you know, on the job. This is off the record. This is a personal question. Friend to friend.” She picks at her taupe-colored nails and shifts her weight to one foot.
    “Okay?”
    “Are you married?”
    “I’m divorced, why?”
    “I hope I’m not overstepping my boundaries here,” she says, “but my parents are divorced and my dad is single, and he’s really lonely, and I feel like the two of you might really hit it off.”
    It takes all the strength I have to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. Keegan doesn’t know me. How would she know her dad would like me? And what makes her think I’d even want to be hooked up with her dad?
    “I feel like you’d be a really cool stepmom,” she says, her lips pulling at the corners. “I mean, you’d be like one of those young stepmoms. I know you’re not old enough to be my mother, but my dad is really progressive and hip, and he’s in his early sixties but he looks so much younger. I think he’d adore you. He likes to date younger women. I mean, not super young. Just younger than him.”
    Young enough to be his daughter?
    I’m incapable of forming a sentence right now. My brows lift and I smile and I stare off to the side, waiting for the right words to show up, but they never do.
    “Just think about it,” she says. “His name is Eugene, and he lives here in Seattle.”
    “I’m very grateful that you think so highly of me, Keegan,” I say, “but I’m not ready to jump into any kind of commitments right now.”
    She places her hand on her heart. “Totally get it. Just wanted to put that out there. Think about it, and if you ever want me to set you up, just let me know.”
    Keegan exhales, as if the proposition had been weighing heavily on her mind all day, and then gives me a wave before turning on her heel and leaving for the day.
    I’m not sure whether to be flattered or offended, so I decide to be both.
    The one thing I never prepared myself for after going through with the divorce was the overabundance of people constantly wanting to set me up. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why everyone thinks I’m unhappy being single.
    I’m totally fine.
    I’m not lonely – I’m just adjusting.
    As soon as I finish filing the last of the hard files, I lock up the store room and head to my desk. Watching the clock, I wait until it’s exactly five o’clock before locking up the rest of the office and heading toward the elevators.
    I pass a man in a suit on my way, and his cologne fills the humid hallway we share. It’s familiar, like spice and soap, and in that half-second I’m transported to Friday night, standing in the parking lot with Dante.
    I’ve managed to go most of today without thinking too much about him. Sure, a thought or two have slipped through here or there, but nothing too intrusive. For all intents and purposes, I’m moving on like nothing happened.
    And if I want to get technical here, nothing has happened.

Chapter 10
    M aren

    I park my car in Nathan’s driveway Tuesday night. His garage door is open and Lauren’s white Audi is MIA. Six months of transporting the kids back and forth and she always seems to do a good job of making herself disappear when she knows I’m coming around.
    A minute later, I’m ambling up the paved sidewalk and ringing