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to want it, anyway. So I ran. Ran like the wind.
     
    ***
     
    Only a week after “The Bet,” I had another encounter with Riley. It wasn’t my fault though. Really. ‘Cause I had planned to stay clear of him for the rest of the summer. Seemed easy enough. He went back to avoiding me, didn’t even look at me now—which made me feel kind of bad. I mean, besides being hot, Riley was a nice guy. He was. And it wasn’t exactly nice, the way I ran out on him the other night. I was feeling a little, tiny bit guilty about that. And somehow, his non-attention made me feel even worse.
    So, it was incredibly awkward when the air conditioning went out in the kitchen of the restaurant, because all of my fellow co-workers enlisted me to motivate Riley to get it fixed. Again, they had me take off my uniform shirt and fluff up my hair. Also, they flung water on me—and my tank top—strategically, to make it look like sweat.
    “No, that looks too sexy.” Aiden—our restaurant’s hot, 22-year-old bartender—eyed me up and down critically, yet somewhat flirty—I think. “He’ll never fix the heat if you send her in looking like that.”
    “No, it’ll work,” Porcha insisted.
    “You guys,” I protested for the hundredth time. “You don’t need to do this. He’ll fix the air conditioner. He’s not a mercenary.”  
    “He’ll fix it—eventually. We want it fixed now, though, tonight. I’ve been pleading with him all day. He keeps saying Tuesday. I can’t wait until Tuesday,” Porcha moaned. “I’m sweating like a pig.”
    “You smell like one too,” Megan teased, fanning herself with a menu. “I’m going back out in the seating area. It’s nice and cool out there—spoiled customers.”
    Porcha humphed. “You can bet if the air conditioning broke in the dinning room he would have it fixed in a heartbeat.” She dabbed some more water on my chest. “There. Perfect.”
    Of course I should have objected more. Here I was letting my co-workers pimp me out. But the thing was, they were usually so mean to me. It was lame, but I liked their attention—everyone suddenly being so nice, plotting for me to be their hero. Though admittedly, they had been being a lot nicer to me these days, anyway. And they’d had a right, sort of, to hate me in the beginning. Since right from the start Riley had given me special treatment, an awesome work schedule and the best tables. I would have hated me too, probably.
    Anyway, somehow, I found myself at Riley’s office door again, my palms sweating, from nerves or heat, I wasn’t sure which. But since I was shaking as well, I figured it was mostly nerves.
    When Riley saw it was me at the door, he did a double take. And I sort of blushed, wanting my uniform top back on. The way Riley stared—it wasn’t like when I caught him looking at me in the restaurant; he didn’t look away. He just kept staring.   And his gaze had me confused, filling me with mixed emotions, making me want to run and hide, but at the same time, fall into his arms and pant, “Forget Finn, I have a free pass!” After all, lately I’d fantasized night after night about him looking at me just the way he was—full of want.
    But I didn’t run away or jump in his arms. Instead, I just stood in the doorway, trying to remember what Porcha had instructed me to do. “Look sexy.” I could remember her saying that, but the way Riley was staring, I was pretty sure I had that covered.
    Riley cleared his throat. “Is there something you need, Jones?”
    “Uh, yeah. I need next Saturday off. My little sister, Jillian, has a dance recital, and Justin has his first soccer game.”
    Okay, I realize this wasn’t what I was sent in to ask for. And I realized it at the time as well. But I did need next Saturday off and it was way easier to ask for that than the new air conditioner. I mean, Riley knew we needed a new air conditioner. And everyone had already been nagging him about it. All of a sudden I just felt dumb