The Baby Shift- Washington Read online

  “This is how it’s going to work. We’re going to pretend you didn’t basically drool all over yourself looking at me this morning, and you’re never going to go back to Donna’s diner, because her hash browns are the best things I’ve ever tasted, and I think I need at least a dose of them a day for the rest of my life.”

  Tanner was startled. Assuming that they’d continue talking about employment-related things, he had to quickly regroup. So, she wanted to confront their meeting head-on? Sure. He could do that. He could stay calm in the face of the woman he had ogled this morning. He could totally do that. He’d had literally months of training teaching him how to handle situations ranging from brawls to harassment; surely he could keep his cool during something as easy as a conversation. “I’m sorry about that. I just…well, never mind. The point is that I’m totally fine pretending I wasn’t an utter doofus to you this morning, but I’m afraid I can’t give up Donna’s. I was there first.”

  “What do you mean, you were there first?” Susanna asked, leaning toward Tanner in a way that pressed her breasts up against her desk, causing her cleavage to call to Tanner in a way he was far too human to ignore. Her breasts were pushed up, the line between them popping out of her V-neck, and Tanner imagined drawing his tongue up that line, the taste of her skin sweet and salty in his mouth. But those were not the thoughts to be having about his new boss. No sir. He needed to think with the head above his pants if he wanted to keep this gig. Be strong, Tan, be strong, he whispered to himself.

  “What did you just say?” Susanna asked, clearing having heard Tanner whispering to himself. He decided that she didn’t really need to hear his private pep talk, so instead, he replied, “I said I cannot give up Donna’s and I won’t, because that’s been me and my best friend Logan’s breakfast spot for the past eighteen months, and without Donna’s hash browns, I will actually perish, and my creativity will flounder, and I’ll be no good to you or myself.”

  Susanna snorted at this and shook her head. “You’re funny. And fine, eighteen months is definitely long enough for it to qualify as “your place.” You can have Donna’s, though a part of my soul will hate you forever for denying me those sweet, sweet fried potatoes.”

  Tanner did a subtle fist pump under the table, then looked up at Susanna innocently. “Cool. Now that that’s cleared up, when can I get my hands dirty?”

  Susanna’s eyebrows rose, and Tanner rushed to add, “With paint. When can I get my hands dirty with paint?”

  “Let’s give you the tour first and then I’ll show you how to do a mock-up.”

  “Excellent,” Tanner said, beaming at his boss as he stood up from his chair and waited for her to walk around her desk.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing that she should walk in front of him. Susanna shook her head at him. “I guess chivalry isn’t dead, after all,” she deadpanned as she walked past him.

  Tanner let the quip brush off him as he followed her out of the office, glad that she had interpreted his move as chivalry when really, he thought chivalry was anti-feminist and antiquated. Really, he’d just wanted a chance to watch her ass as they walked down the hallway. And as Susanna walked in front of him, Tanner found that it was even rounder and more luscious than he’d imagined, and in the forty-five minute since meeting her, he’d done a lot of imagining.

  Chapter 3

  “So, before every mural we do at least two mock-ups, to make sure we have the colors, shading, and placement of the image right,” Susanna told Tanner as they walked into the open door of the workrooms, having just completed the building tour.

  The room was colorful and busy, each wall covered in freehand murals as well as inspiration boards pinned with interesting images cut from magazines. A huge conference table was set up in the middle of the room and was laid out with giant canvases and pots of unopened acrylic paints. Paintbrushes were grouped neatly in old yogurt containers at each end of the table. The smell of paint with the prospect of creativity filled Tanner’s nostrils and got his blood pumping. He lived for this smell, loved for this smell, had spent every waking moment of the last year and a half when he wasn’t working soaking it up in the small bedroom he’d co-opted into a studio in his apartment.

  “On the right over there is a computer where you can lay out images and grid them, and over there is a printer so you can work from the grid. I’d like you to try laying out and doing a mock-up of this picture for us today, adding your own twist to it, of course,” Susanna said, handing Tanner an 8x11 landscape picture of the famous Seattle band, Mother Love Bone.

  “Cool. When do you want the mock-up done?” Tanner asked, already mapping out the painting in his head, adding more color and shadow and maybe a quote surrounding Andrew Wood’s head from one of their lesser-known songs.

  “Whenever you’re ready. We’re pretty low-key around here. We don’t really do deadlines, except for the murals themselves. Everything else is done based on the person’s own creativity schedule,” Susanna said, shrugging as though this were normal.

  When Tanner had accepted the job, he’d assumed he’d have to be “on” 9-5 every day and had prepared himself for it by spending the last three weeks following a “draw your day” book he’d gotten at one of the local indie bookshops. He had tried to train himself to squeeze out at least a little creativity every day, in hopes of preparing himself for what he assumed would be a creatively demanding job at Murals&More.

  Now, he felt a little silly for being so prepared, and Susanna must have noticed the slightly embarrassed tinge to his cheeks because she looked at him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Just not used to not having a schedule,” Tanner said, scratching the back of his head.

  “I’m of the opinion that art doesn’t follow a schedule. Or at least, good art doesn’t,” she said handing him a smock from where it had been tucked under her arm. “Put this on so you don’t ruin your clothes. Lunch is at one, and it’s catered by a local company that specializes in recycling food waste, and we close up shop at 4:30. I’ll check in just before noon to see how you’re doing. Any questions?”

  Tanner shook his head. He couldn’t believe his luck. This really was the job of his dreams.

  “Good luck. I look forward to seeing what you come up with,” Susanna said and gave Tanner the first real smile she’d given him all morning, one that reached all the way to her beautiful brown eyes, making them sparkle and crease at the corners. She was even more beautiful when she smiled, and Tanner made it his mission to make sure she did it easily and often.

  ---

  The morning passed in a blur of pencil sketches, swaths of red paint, and the impression of good work being done. Tanner was so far in the zone that he didn’t even notice Susanna standing behind him, admiring his work until he stood up and nearly bumped into her.

  “Whoa! Sorry. Didn’t hear you come in,” he said, taking his earphones off and hitting pause on his Spotify playlist, entitled, appropriately, “Painting.” He’d spent all weekend making it, picking the best songs to paint to, again in hopes of continuously sparking his creativity, though to be fair, Bob Dylan was also just fun to listen to.

  “This is…this is amazing,” Susanna breathed, looking down at the canvas in front of Tanner. He’d gone for a color explosion of sorts, making the shadows of the face varying hues of yellow, orange and red, and the background shades of blue and purple. At first, Tanner had been worried it would be too bright, but the more he worked at it, the more he felt it was right. It would brighten up whatever area it was painted on, whether inner city or suburbs, and he had nearly finished the quote at the top when Susanna walked in.

  “Thanks. Though obviously if you think there are things I should change, I’m happy to,” Tanner said as he unwound the headphones from his neck and stashed them in the pocket of his smock.

  “I wouldn’t change a thing. I love it,” Susanna said, and Tanner could tell that wasn’t a compliment she gave to everyone. When she said it,
she looked deep into his eyes, like she wanted him to know that she loved it without a shadow of a doubt. She looked so serious and sincere that Tanner couldn’t help the jump his heart gave; he knew, intrinsically, that this was a special moment.

  But the moment was broken when the secretary, Shontelle, poked her head in the doorway and said, “Su, lunch is here.” Susanna took a step back from Tanner, nearly butting into a shelf full of crayons and colored pencils.

  “Right, so, I’ll see you in a sec. Don’t forget to de-smock,” she said, motioning to Tanner’s chest, which was covered in paint.

  “Sure thing. See you in a sec,” he said, watching her walk away and thinking, for approximately the 65th time that day that he really, really wanted to know what Susanna Able was about. One minute she was talking about hash browns and the next she was all business, shutting down like a fortress. But just then she’d practically gushed over his painting, her eyes lighting up with excitement and warmth. Why was she so closed off, and was there anything he could do to change that?

  Chapter 4

  Lunch was delicious, a vegetable curry with fried rice and a beetroot brownie that Tanner thought was almost Logan-apple-pie levels of good, though he would keep that comment to himself, lest Logan gets in a snit about it. But though he enjoyed chatting with his new co-workers and getting to know how and why each of them had come to Murals&More, his eyes couldn’t help from straying again and again to Susanna where she held court at the end of the lunchroom, talking to the secretary, Shontelle, and the assistant director, Marta.

  He loved the way Susanna stood, one hip cocked to the side, taking big bites of the curry in between laughter at something Shontelle was saying. She looked so uninhibited, so self-assured and confident, and Tanner found that so fucking hot. Hell, he found her hot. Period.

  But the next time his eyes drifted over to her, Tanner found Susanna staring right back at him, a question and a challenge in her eyes. He wanted to answer that question, beat that challenge, but how could he, when he was the new guy in town, and she was his boss? Moreover, how could he when he was a werewolf and her a beautiful human? Those two things did not go together. Sure, he wanted to figure her out, to solve her like a Rubik’s cube, but he also knew that was a fantasy. He was the new guy, and she was the boss lady. There was no way anything was going to happen between them.

  Thankfully, painting provided his mind with a reprieve from thoughts of Susanna, and he spent the rest of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on his mock-up, eager to see what Susanna thought of the shading he’d added to the side of the face and the deeper blue he’d used for the end of the quote. He was just cleaning his brushes and drying them when he heard his name.

  “Tanner?”

  He whipped around and found Susanna standing there, looking surprisingly awkward.

  “Hey! I was just going to come find you and show you the finished product. What do you think?” he asked.

  Susanna glanced at the canvas next to her and then walked closer like she was drawn by the colors. She stood for what seemed like minutes, tracing the lines with her fingers hovering just above the canvas. Tanner kept cleaning, but his gaze was trained on her the entire time, his focus so far strayed that he barely noticed it when the water ran cold and started turning his fingernails blue.

  Finally, Susanna looked up and into his eyes. “It’s perfect. I…I’ve never seen anything like this. You’re a fucking diamond in the rough, Tanner. This is…this is amazing. Thank you.”

  Tanner shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He could never feel nonchalant about his work, but this situation needed some levity; it was feeling way too intense, and he was having trouble fighting the urge to go over to Susanna and show her who the real diamond in the rough was, and he seriously doubted she would like having his grubby man-claws on her. So, he said, “No problem. Just doing my job.”

  Susanna shook her head. “This isn’t the work of someone who thinks this is just a job. This is so much more than that. You put your heart and soul into a mock-up. A mock-up,” she said like she couldn’t believe it.

  “Is that…is that not what we’re supposed to do? For a mock-up, I mean?” Tanner asked.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” Susanna said, putting her hands out in supplication. “This is insanely amazing. I just wasn’t expecting it from your first go. I’m…I’m not communicating this well, but I’m really fucking impressed with you, Tanner.”

  Tanner smiled. “Thanks.” He turned back to finish drying the yogurt cups so he could stack the brushes in them, but he could feel Susanna’s presence behind him.

  “I can’t wait to see what else you come up with,” she breathed near his neck, and a shiver ran all the way down his spine as he turned around. But Susanna was gone, the only sign that she had been in the room at all was her scent—coconuts and lemongrass and something unidentifiable—lingering in the air. Tanner breathed it in and tried to keep it with him as he cleaned up the room, shut the lights off, and walked outside to where Logan was waiting for him in the truck.

  “How was it?” Logan asked while Tanner slid into the passenger seat.

  “It was…good. Yeah, it was good,” Tanner said, buckling himself in and adjusting his boxers to hide the raging erection he had.

  “You sure? You look a bit…I don’t know, a bit weird. Something wrong?” Logan asked.

  Tanner sighed and shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe that this was his life. “I think I’m in love.”

  Logan sputtered and stopped his hand where it was clutched on the gearshift, prepared to move it from park to reverse. “What? Seriously? You’ve known her for—what— twelve hours!”

  “Yes, seriously. She’s perfect, man. So strong and confident, but there are these glimpses of vulnerability, and I want to know her so badly. But I am a wolf, and she is a human and that would never work, besides which, I already looked at my employment contract again during lunch, and employees at Murals&More aren’t allowed to date. So, I am well and truly screwed here, man.”

  Logan grimaced as he reversed and drove toward the parking lot entrance, waiting for the road to clear so he could turn right and back toward Freemont. “Yikes. Well, maybe the sexual frustration will be good for your art?”

  Tanner leveled his friend with a glance, but Logan’s eyes were too focused on the road. “Sure. Blue balls are really going to help my creativity.”

  Logan shrugged. “Hey man, poets find inspiration from unrequited love. I assume painters can do the same. Now cheer up. There’s enchiladas and a big-ass apple pie waiting for us at home, and the boys and Amelia are calling at six.”

  Tanner sat back in the seat and consoled himself with the knowledge, that even if he was in love with his boss and would most likely be sporting a boner at work for the next year straight, at least he had apple pie. It paled in comparison to the sweetness of Susanna’s smell, the deliciousness of being close to her, but at least it was something he could actually have. He would just have to eat a lot of pie for the next year.

  Chapter 5

  Six Months Later…

  * * *

  “I just don’t get it. How do you do it?” Susanna asked Tanner as she stood in front of another one of his mock-ups. This was his seventh for the organization but the first one they had worked on together. Three of his previous mock-ups had been used as the basis for murals around the city, and now that he knew his style was a success with his peers, he was starting to experiment, go even crazier with colors and shading, and Susanna had gone with it, echoing his inspiration and matching her own style to it on the canvas sitting next to his.

  * * *

  Of course, he’d hoped she would love it. Tanner had long ago come to terms with the fact that almost everything he did at Murals&More was done with the hope that Susanna would notice and approve. He was like a dog craving affection from its owner, constantly looking for ways to get even the smallest dose of approbation.

  * * *

&nb
sp; Tanner shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just felt so inspired since I started working here,” he said, not adding that most of that inspiration came from the woman standing next to him, her long hair brushing against his arm as they leaned over the wet canvas and jacking his heart rate up by a factor of about a thousand.

  * * *

  “Well, keep at it, and there might be a promotion in your future. We have a new position opening up soon, and I’m going to recommend you to the board members,” Susanna said, standing up and looking Tanner in the eye. God, he loved her eyes. At first, they looked plain chocolate brown, but a closer look revealed sparks of caramel and gold, the rims a dark, pure black that mesmerized him every time he looked at them, which was more and more.

  * * *

  Though Susanna had kept her distance from him for his first few months at

  Murals&More, thanks to a few new commissions, they’d been working more closely together these last two months. Tanner was, to his surprise, the best artist in the organization next to Susanna, and he had gained a small following over the last few months thanks to the Instagram account Amelia had helped him start. He posted sketches, snippets of paintings, the art he saw on his runs around Seattle, and each of his images had been met with more and more likes until they had caught the attention of the city’s art commissioner. A phone call and a meeting later, Tanner was being commissioned to create murals near City Hall, and Susanna was to be his co-creator. They’d been doing mock-ups side by side for the last few weeks, trying to get the placement exactly right.