Manhunt TASCHENBUCH

BRIDGET

Friday 6:05 pm

The last thing I
wanted to do at work on a Friday at five was fill out a sex quiz.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how kinky you are?

I glanced at the
question on my computer screen and rolled my eyes. Then they snagged on the
time in the upper right corner and I panicked.

“Fuck. I don’t have
time for this,” I muttered to myself. I hadn’t finished updating the graph on
my desk in front of me, or adjusted the project schedule or any of the other
things that got pushed back because of the meeting earlier. Just like
everything else on the James Inn build. Instead, I rushed to finally fill out a
silly sex quiz my BFF was forcing me to complete.

It was after six and
no one else was in the office, the others having cut out for the weekend
already. It wasn’t that I was more diligent, but I was dreading going to happy
hour.

Yeah, that was me.
The weird woman who didn’t want to meet up with her bestie and others for
ladies night. I liked my friends, but the friends were bringing friends and the
bar would be crowded. Men on the prowl. Ladies on a manhunt. I wasn’t
interested. It made me nervous. Uncomfortable.

And I really didn’t want to have my quiz
shared, like all of them would. My sex life sucked and I didn’t need to share
it.

I typed my answer
about being kinky with “No comment” then scanned the next question.

If you didn’t answer, is it because you are a virgin?

“Jesus.” I couldn’t
believe Mallory had come up with this. No, I could. It was just like her to be
so bold and… insane. To take something from an eighties movie and put a
modern–and adult–spin on it.

I jammed the N and
the O keys extra hard.

How many partners have you had?

My cell rang and I
jumped, then when I saw the display I grabbed it up and answered. “I can’t
believe you’re making me take this stupid quiz,” I told my best friend instead
of hello.

“I can’t believe you
haven’t answered any of my calls,” Mallory countered, but wouldn’t be
distracted. “And the quiz is for ladies’ night.”

That, I already knew.
She’d been pestering me about it for almost a week. Yes, I’d been holding off
that long. As for ignoring her, I’d seen she’d called three times and left four
texts, but it’d been too crazy to reply.

“I had to hear from
Jemma about the gorgeous man in your office.”

Of course Mallory
would get the latest from Jemma, the office manager, who she knew since she
came to the office sometimes.

“I want to hear
alllllll about it.”

“Sex quiz or details
on Maverick James?” I offered her the options, but I wasn’t sure which one she
was going to pick.

“Shit, that’s a tough
call. It’s going to be so much fun reading all the sex quiz answers,” she
replied with enthusiasm that bordered on giddy. “But from what I heard from
Jemma, a woman can orgasm by the sound of that man’s voice.”

That wasn’t too far
from the truth.

“I hate you,” I
growled, playing with my ponytail and remembering I had a pencil behind my ear.
I tossed it onto my desk.

“What’s got your
panties in a twist? What’s wrong with being horny for the hot boss?”

I rested my forehead
in my hand and shook my head.

“It’s been a day,” I
explained, leaving out the fact that a lot of my frustration really did have to
do with the guy. My boss’s boss. The hot one. Who I really was horny for. Not
that I would admit that to Mallory. She’d make me go shopping and wear makeup
to work for him to notice me.

I’d done that all by
myself earlier. No makeup needed.

“Tell me all about it,” she continued on a sigh.
“Especially if it involves Maverick James, that gorgeous piece of man meat.”

“How do you know–”

“I looked him up
online after I talked to Jemma.”

Of course she had.
She wasn’t lying about him, except– “If you want me to get to the bar on time,
or anytime tonight, I need to finish the quiz.”

It was the only way I
could think of to get her to stop talking about him. Talk about a guy making me
nervous and uncomfortable.

She and I had watched
the Sixteen Candles two weeks ago and
she decided that making a sex quiz–like in the movie–and sharing answers
tonight with a bunch of girlfriends was happening.

“You haven’t finished
it yet? Don’t tell me you’re still at work.”

“Fine, I won’t tell
you.”

Another sigh came
through the phone. “You need to take that Physics teacher job at the high
school. You’d have your summer off like me.”

“Not all of us can
teach first grade,” I countered.

“Whatever. I thought
you were going to go home and change into the cute top.”

The cute top she was
talking about was hanging in the back of my closet and never to appear. It was
banished there as Mallory forced me to order it. It wasn’t something I ever
planned on wearing. Not that it was over-the-top or inappropriate, it just
wasn’t me. Or, it showed too much of me.
I glanced down at myself. Jeans and a long-sleeved white t-shirt. Plain.
Boring.

“The project is
behind schedule,” I told her instead of continuing the conversation about why I
didn’t want to wear the cute top. I
was content being less seen. Blending in. The clusterfuck earlier today was an
example of that. Being a woman on a huge construction site was bad enough. I
didn’t want to look… good. I wanted to work and get on with my unexciting
little life. “Besides the coffee spill, the framers are going to add a second
crew,” I continued, pushing the point home that things were hectic. “The
electrical team is on hold until next Thursday and my boss got fired.”

“Maverick James was
fired?” she screeched.

Out of all the
issues, she focused on that. “Not him. He’s the owner, remember. Maverick James as in James Corporation. My boss’s
boss.”

“So your boss’s boss
fired your boss?”

That had been a scene
and I curled in on myself even remembering. I didn’t like confrontations and
that had been a doozy. And about me. “Yes.”

“Good. That guy is a
total sleaze.”

In the past, I’d
shared with her how much of a dick the guy was. I was going to have a drink–or
two–later to celebrate his departure and the spectacular way it was done.

“I’ll see you in a
few at Kincaid’s,” I told her.

“Hell no,” she
replied. I imagined her holding her hand up in front of her. “I’m not letting
you off the phone until you finish the quiz and email it to me. Then you’ll
drive your butt right to over here to the bar.”

I rolled my eyes at
the ceiling, then back to the screen. “Fine.”

I set the cell to
speaker mode and sat it on my desk so I could type with two hands.

To the number of
partners question, I typed in 1.

It was a sad number
at twenty-two and my prospects to change it weren’t on the horizon.

What’s the one thing you wish you got from your partners?

That was easy.
Orgasms.

“I hear the keyboard
clacking. I hope that means you’re doing the quiz and not some fancy math
validating the vertical structural integrity of an I-beam.”

“Vertical structural
integrity?” I asked, my fingers stilling. “What does that even mean?”

“I have no idea.
You’re the math and engineering brainiac.”

I sighed, trying to
keep up with Mallory’s busy thoughts. I was the quiet shy one and she was the
extrovert constantly trying to pull me out of my shell. It had worked since
elementary school when our desks were side by side, but after high school, I’d
gone to MIT for college. Far from Hunter Valley, Montana. When everyone wanted
to know why I’d returned a semester early and without my degree, it hadn’t
helped. Mallory was trying, but it was going to take more than a sex quiz and
ladies night to get me out there again. “Do you want me to finish this quiz or
not?”