Thirty Happens by Elizabeth Butts Read Free Book Online

shadowing me for a couple days.”
    He pushed an impressive stack of papers my way. If I was a tree hugger I would have gone into an apoplectic rage. However, I’d never hugged a tree in my whole life so I shrugged it off and grabbed the offered pen and got to work.
    While I filled out documents asking me my name, date of birth and social security number over and over and over again, I paid attention to the work Jenkins was doing in the background. He probably took fifteen phone calls during the time that I was filling out all of the new hire paperwork, answering both his cell phone and his work phone. Once he was talking on both in the weirdest type of conference call in the history of mankind. I was impressed at how level headed he was through everything, even when it seemed to get heated. I was also impressed and kind of intimidated at how he was able to keep everything straight when he had about ten different projects he was working on at once.
    I didn’t really know what I was going to be doing here, but dear Lord, if this was the guy I was going to be working with, I had a feeling there were some pretty high expectations for me.

chapter six.
     
     
    O w.
    My feet and legs were absolutely killing me. I was careful not to use the word ‘literally’ in my mind, because I’d already been gently corrected today. As in, ‘Jensen, your feet aren’t literally plotting your demise while you sleep, detaching themselves from your body and stabbing you in the dark.’ Apparently, a pet peeve of my new mentor, and I’ll do whatever was necessary to keep him happy with me.
    Hard to believe I’d been on the beat for just about a week. There were moments that I felt as if I’d been here my whole life. Then there were moments, like now, when I was trying to accomplish the simple task of finding the ever elusive coffee pot where it was glaringly obviously that I was new.
    I finally found the small staff kitchen where the coffee was kept. I was irrationally proud of myself that I only took three wrong turns this time. This was the fourth coffee run of the day. I wasn’t certain that drinking this much coffee was good for anyone. I mean, it was two in the afternoon and we were drinking liquid caffeine as if we had crammed overnight for a final.
    I thought of my teeth. Ew. I was going to end up with yellow stained teeth if I wasn’t careful. Mental note: pick up whitening products on my way back to the dorm.
    WHAM!
    I ran into a wall. A warm wall. A very firm, muscular, warm wall. I looked up into a slightly worn face, with a five o’clock shadow (yum), and sparkling blue eyes.
    “Oh my God, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going and was kind of lost in my head, and it took me four tries to find this place again and I’m worried I’m going to end up with yellow teeth from all this coffee. And now I’m rambling.” I could feel the blush making its way up my neck past my cheeks. I had a tendency to overshare and babble when faced with hot men. I would be an epic fail as a heroine in a romance novel.
    I slapped the palm of my hand against my forehead. Which was childish. And dorky. And embarrassing.
    I raised my eyes to meet his, which were looking both entertained and, I don’t know… proud. That was weird.
    “I’m Anderson. Liam Anderson.”
    Oh. My. Freakin. God.
    Liam freakin’ Anderson.
    My friends at school crushed on Hollywood boys. Seriously. Ben. Matt. Orlando.
    Me? I crushed on newsmen. And by newsmen, I did not mean Ron Burgundy.
    Blyeck. Ron Burgundy skeeved me right out.
    Liam was the bad boy of the news world. Hot damn. I would do things to that man. Given the opportunity, I would show that news nerds could be sexy.
    Wait a minute.
    I was pretty sure that somewhere I’d read that he was married.
    My eyes dropped to his left hand and saw no glint of gold. Hmm. Maybe I had heard wrong.
    I shook my head as I walked past him. I looked back over my shoulder at him.
    “Nice to meet you. I’m