LITMIR.BIZ

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The sound of someone clapping loudly startled everyone back to life. A sick sense of dread punched her in the gut. She turned to find the men all staring at her, too, some smiling widely. Ken looked horrified.

      Unable to process what had just happened, Joy fumbled the disk back into her purse and headed for her office. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned against her desk, trying to catch her breath, but finding it difficult. Ken came in behind her.

      “What the hell was that?” Then he backed off, looking at her more closely. “Joy—what happened? Are you going to faint?”

      Joy wasn’t sure, actually—she’d never fainted in her life, but she was tempted to give it a shot. The black world of unconsciousness was pretty appealing right now.

      “I d-don’t know,” she panted, trying to get hold of her panicked breathing.

      “How can you not know?”

      “I don’t know,” she bit out. “Someone left me that disk and I didn’t know what was on it.” She could at least tell the truth about that much. Her PR instincts kicked in. She had to find a way to make this better.

      “You should call security.”

      “No, no. I think I know who it was. I’ll handle it. It was a joke, I’m sure.”

      “A pretty sick joke. I’ll support you in placing a formal complaint against whoever gave it to you.”

      “No. I mean, it wasn’t anyone here—it was at home. I found it in my mailbox.”

      Ken stood gaping, unsure what to say. Obviously he hadn’t equated the voice on the recording with her, which was no surprise. When people thought of her, they didn’t exactly think “sex kitten,” and her normal voice was nothing like the sultry, sexy voice on the recording. Even she had trouble believing it was her, but it was. No need for Ken to know that, though.

      “Ken, please, I’m okay. You have people waiting,” she reminded him. She just had to get him out of there.

      “Shit, yeah. I’ll tell them it was a bad joke, and we’re handling it.”

      “That’s good. That’s about right. Extend my deepest apologies.”

      “I’ll do that.” He looked at her for one moment longer, and she started messing with the folders on her desk, waiting until he walked back out the door.

      Crisis averted, hopefully. Still, it was akin to when the jury heard evidence that they weren’t supposed to—someone could tell them to erase it, but she knew this would become part of office lore, and remain on Ken’s mind for a while. She was going to have to kick butt on her presentation to get that promotion.

      Armed with that resolve, Joy tried to get back to work. Her concentration lasted about five minutes.

      How could he have done this? Her neighbor seemed like such a nice guy, but apparently he was a big pervert who taped women in their sleep.

      Well, okay, maybe not a pervert, she admitted grudgingly. She supposed she had pushed him into proving his point, since she wouldn’t cowboy up about the sleep-talking. Yet what he’d done was wrong, and intrusive, and it had given her some bad moments at work. She was going to get through this afternoon and then she planned on making her neighbor her first order of business when she got home.

      RAFE WAS HAVING a great day—one of the best he’d had in a long while. After a relaxing morning run, he’d finished up a few projects. He wondered what Joy was thinking as she listened to his video. Sure she’d grouse about being proved wrong in her denials of sleep-talking, but he hoped she’d be good-natured about it.

      In the late afternoon he decided to wash Warren’s car. Several kids were playing football in the street. When the ball was tossed into his driveway, he pretended not to notice, but then turned the hose on the kid who bravely came after the ball. A frenzied water fight ensued. The kids abandoned their game in search of supersoaking water pistols, camping out behind the bushes, making sneak attacks as they plotted to get the best of him.

      Though he adored his sisters, Rafe always loved the horseplay with his male buddies that he didn’t get at home. The kids’ eyes shone with delight when he blasted them with the hose. Kids loved water, and they loved play-combat, and that was the same no matter what coast you were on.

      When he heard a sound behind him, he growled playfully and swung around. Gripping the trigger on the nozzle, he hosed the figure standing on the other side of the driveway—but it wasn’t one of the kids, and he released the hose trigger immediately, the jet stream of water flagging to a drizzle. Too late.

      “Oh, shit … Joy, I’m so sorry….” He heard the chuckles and catcalls of young boys behind him as they delighted in his mistake. “I thought you were one of the kids…. You know, we don’t always think in the heat of battle.”

      She stared at him silently, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes cool—no, make that frosty. She was soaked from the blast; water was dripping down her cheeks.

      “Are you okay? I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

      She choked out a little laugh, one that didn’t sound humorous—this woman looked as if she was teetering on the edge. What he knew from growing up in a house with three sisters was that her black cloud of temper was centered on him, and it was about far more than getting soaked with a hose. His mind zipped to the tape and he intuited that it might not have gone over as well as he’d hoped.

      A few silly comments were still floating around the yard, and he waved his hand behind him, shooing the kids away. They complied, groaning about their fun ending, but Rafe was focused only on Joy and how she was continuing to glare at him.

      “How could you?” she finally said, her voice tight and low.

      “I told you, I didn’t know it was you….”

      “You know that’s not what I mean. This—” she looked down at her sopping-wet suit before continuing “—is adding insult to injury. What were you hoping to accomplish? Embarrass me? Get me fired? Is this some kind of sick revenge for your sleep problems?”

      He frowned, dropping the hose and stepping forward. “Revenge? For what? What are you talking about—why did you get fired?”

      “I didn’t get fired, but no thanks to you and your stupid … that awful … that …”

      She couldn’t seem to say the words. Much to his dismay, she choked back a sound that was half sob, half moan, which only seemed to add to her embarrassment as she lifted her hands to her face, her shoulders starting to quake.

      “Oh, no! Joy—you played that at work?”

      He thought back, remembering how she’d popped the disk in her bag. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought she’d play it anywhere public. He looked up—she made next to no sound, holding it all in, but her stiff shoulders hunched and he knew she was deeply upset. It struck him that what he’d done had been thoughtless, and he’d been so smug about it all day. He was ashamed about that; what had seemed like a good idea now appeared so stupid. Taking a step forward, he started to speak, and when she lowered her hands, her eyes were blazing.

      “Yes, I took it to work, you son of a bitch! I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know some low-down Peeping Tom had videotaped me sleeping—what are you, some kind of sicko?”

       Low-down? Peeping Tom?

      “Now hold on just one second—I never intended for you to go and—”

      “Oh, so now this is my fault?” She wiped the tears from her eyes furiously, and he didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t exactly the end he’d imagined.

      “No, but I didn’t know what else to do, you were being so stubborn. You were all but accusing me of harassing you, and you were calling my name in your sleep, so I felt like I had to do something. I didn’t know how else to get you to believe me.”

      “Why?

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