Olive Oil and White Bread by Georgia Beers Page A

skin was intoxicating, and she kept at it, kneading not only Angie’s back and shoulders, but her arms, her hands, her thighs, her calves, and even her feet. By the time she felt her own legs tingling from being crunched beneath her on the bed for too long, she’d had her hands on just about every muscle group in Angie’s body and had molded each one into submission. And much to her delight, her own underwear was damp.
    Happy about the discovery, she hopped off the bed and quickly divested herself of her clothes, then scooted up next to Angie.
    Whose eyes were closed.
    Who was breathing deeply, evenly.
    Who was sound asleep.
    Jillian turned onto her back and blew out a huge breath of defeat, trying to think that she’d done a great job at relaxing her girlfriend, not that her plan had backfired. With a turn of her head, she studied Angie, ran her eyes over her face, the smooth skin, the full, pink lips that were the shape of a perfect bow, the chicken pox scar at her right temple, the small brown mole low on her chin. Using her thumb, Jillian stroked the length of one dark eyebrow once, twice. This was the only time lately that Angie seemed relaxed . . . when she slept. During her waking hours, her face was tenser, her brows a tiny bit furrowed. Not for the first time, Jillian worried that Angie was working too hard.
    â€œI love you,” she whispered, and leaned forward to place a feather-light kiss on Angie’s nose.
    They lay face to face until Jillian followed Angie into slumber.

Ten
    When the office-wide intercom clicked on and Guelli’s voice filled the room, Angie and Hope were in Hope’s office chatting about a couple of Angie’s accounts.
    â€œPlease, everybody, let’s take a moment to congratulate Keith Muldoon for closing a jacket order today with Cavit-McTavish for a hundred thousand dollars. Nice job, Keith.”
    Angie and Hope blinked at one another for a moment until Hope broke the silence with a fiercely whispered, “What the fuck ?”
    Angie shook her head as muffled applause could be heard throughout the building. “How the hell does he do that? I want to close a hundred thousand dollar order.”
    â€œI don’t even want to think of the commission on that one. I’ll want to kill myself.”
    Even as they spoke, Angie was doing the calculations in her mind. On an order that size, Keith had probably marked it up by twenty-five or even thirty thousand dollars. Angie knew he got a bigger commission percentage than she did. He stood to make somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand dollars. On one order.
    â€œThat prick,” Hope muttered. Keith got a larger percentage than she did as well, and judging by her face, she obviously knew it. Hope did just fine with her own sales, but Angie knew that it had to grind on her a little bit. “I’d be happy for him if he wasn’t a chauvinistic asshole.”
    Angie grinned, but nodded her agreement. “I know. I get that if you make more sales, you get a bigger cut. But he’s just such a jerk.”
    There was no love lost between Hope and Keith. Frankly, there was no love lost between Keith and most women. He had thesupremely annoying habit of calling them all sweetheart or honey or babe , and often expected them to do such things as bring him a cup of coffee or box up a package for him. On top of that, he didn’t see anything wrong with his behavior; he actually thought he was being nice. When anybody called him on it, he’d simply shrug it off. And her previous job as office manager meant that Angie felt obligated to do what Keith asked of her, despite Hope continually reminding her that she was now his peer. She had as hard a time accepting that as Keith did—a fact that annoyed her to no end.
    â€œHis advantage is that he knows everybody ,” Angie said. “He’s got contacts all over the place, and if there’s some place he doesn’t have