Thirty Happens by Elizabeth Butts Read Free Book Online Page A

Karyn Jensen, rather, Jensen around here, I guess.”
    He nodded slowly, in a weird, knowing way.
    “Ah, Jenkin’s girl.”
    Something in the way he called me Jenkin’s ‘girl’ rubbed me wrong.
    “I’m sorry, perhaps you are slightly mistaken. I am Marv Jenkin’s intern . I am not his girl, whatever the hell that means. So, you can take your award winning journalist supremacist attitude and shove it up your way too tight ass.”
    I was filling up the coffee mugs while I said that, finally tossing my hair back over my shoulder as I turned and gave him a disgusted once over. I brushed by him, grazing my shoulder against his side, choosing to ignore that his body heat seared my arm.
    Damn.             
    That had never happened before. My skin sizzled over just one light touch. I decided that it was the effect of the lethal amount of caffeine that I had consumed during the day and was in no way related to the narcissistic, self-righteous prick of a sex god that stood before me.
    Don’t look back.
    Don’t look back.
    Don’t look back.
    I was proud of myself for walking away without looking back. I desperately wanted to look over my shoulder, if only to raise my lip in a snarl at him. Yeah. That was the reason I wanted to look back.
    I took a quick left turn to the office and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him still standing there. I was certain that I’d been stealthy, except for the smirk and slight incline of his head.
    UGH.
    He was so freaking stuck on himself. I was so out of my league. I made a mental note to stay far, far away from him at all costs.
    “Ah, good, Jensen. Was afraid you had gotten lost. Again.”
    I rolled my eyes at him while handing over the still steaming cup of coffee.
    “Calm down, I made it back safely without you having to send out a search crew.”
    He took a deep drink of the inky colored brew, sighing with contentment and closing his eyes as if he was drinking coffee from a French café.
    I took a tentative sip and shuddered. Truth was, I’d had better coffee from a gas station. Holy crap, this was some nasty shit. But I was exhausted, and this was caffeine. I had somehow gone past the point of giving a shit about the fact that I was drinking this swill and calling it ‘coffee’.
    “So, there’s a mixer tonight for all of the interns to meet each other. It’s in about twenty minutes. I wasn’t thinking you’d want to go, but I was advised to let you know about it so you would have the opportunity to meet your fellow interns so you wouldn’t be isolated during this experience.” He looked at me a little sheepishly. I had already seen that he saw me as more an employee than an intern, and for some reason, he was nervous calling me ‘intern’.
    I was getting paid. Paid to do what I wanted to do more than anything in the universe, and paid by my dream newspaper. He could call me a hooker for all I cared. I had thought this internship was an unpaid one, and even then I would have had to promise sexual favors to be the successful candidate.
    “Jay, I think I have something that will make you incredibly motivated to be the best intern in the universe and the envy of all other interns that have ever walked these halls.”
    Jay?
    “What the eff, Jenkins? Jay?”
    “Yeah, Jensen seems too long to be saying all the time.”
    Seriously? I raised an eyebrow and looked at him with my head tilted.
    “Lazy ass.”
    His eyes bugged for a moment before I was rewarded with his trademarked laughter.
    “I can’t believe it, Jay. You’ve been here less than twenty four hours and you have no fear of me.”
    I grinned at him. For some crazy reason, I realized that this was a compliment. A huge freakin’ compliment.
    “You’ll survive, Jenk. So what’s the drill? I go, I wine, and I dine and make all the other interns jealous?”
    “Uh, yeah, something like that.”
    I smacked him lightly on the arm.
    “What are you worried about? It wouldn’t kill me to make some