Chapter 1, Part 4

Jeana used her employee key to enter the back door. It was late and the warehouse was nearly empty. If this were November, the middle of the holiday season, the warehouse and call center would be buzzing with the activity of taking and filling orders for hungry customers. But on a hot night in August, there was no reason for most people to stay late. Just the skeleton crew on the phones until 11, when they’d close for the night and let the answering machine take care of the rest for the next nine hours.

Jeana slunk into the cheese cave that wasn’t actually a cave, just a small, climate controlled room with no windows and one entrance where they kept the stinkiest, most expensive cheeses. She pulled out a towel from beneath the rack of Camembert, rolled it out in a clear space of floor and unbuttoned her shorts.

Brad entered still in his apron and baseball cap, a sexier alternative to the hairnet, and shut the door behind him. Jeana shivered.

“I wish we could meet somewhere else. I always feel like we’re going to get trapped in here.”

“Would that be so bad? We’ve got food.” He pointed to her thighs, vibrating with each ring of her phone. “You’ve got cell service.”

Jeana retrieved her phone and silenced the ringer. “We’ve got cheese. Stinky, runny, moldy cheese. And minimal ventilation.” She pushed down her shorts and stepped out of them, putting herself just in front of him. She reached out and took off his hat, smoothed the low brown bangs- so different from Nicholas’ thick black dreads, over his eyes. Brad closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

“What’d he do this time?” Brad asked.

“He ditched me for his grandmother,” Jeana pouted.

Eyes still closed, Brad raised his eyebrows. “And that made you mad?”

“That made me horny,” Jeana said. She grabbed Brad by the strings of his apron and pulled him to the ground on top of her, ignoring the soft buzzing of her phone, buried in the cloth of her shorts. Probably Nicholas, she thought. But she didn’t answer. Her boyfriend could wait.