Chapter 1

“You’re a pig, Charlie. Keep your eyes where they belong,” Jimmy Shaler said behind me, looking over my right shoulder.

Neither of us were concentrating on the new eyewear design on the seventeen-inch flat screen in front of us on my desk. Instead, I gazed at Zeb Carlow’s tight ass again, mesmerized by its two bulbous orbs, compact in a pair of office casual khakis.

Jimmy swiveled my chair around and faced me. He joked, “Human Resources is going to be up your ass if Zeb catches you ogling him again and turns you in.”

“Zeb’s dick is what I want up my ass,” I confessed, eager to stare at the blond’s bottom again, coveting his six-two frame and abounding muscles.

Jimmy looked and acted ten years older than our thirty-four years. He had labored at EyeZeal for the last fourteen years and knew how the company worked. Kate Tyberbill in Human Resources loathed sexual harassment of any kind in the office. She’d fired numerous past employees for lesser work crimes.

Jimmy brushed a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, shook his head, and said, “Go after him if you want, but Zeb will be hard to catch since he’s the boss’ son. He’s unavailable for any and all personal needs that you may have for him.”

“You’re a party pooper, Jimmy. Go back to your wife and kids and leave me alone. I’ve got a husband to find. Zeb can easily fit that role.”

“It’s too bad, if you want to know the truth. The two of you would look perfect together. He looks like Thor, and you look like Superman. You’d turn heads together.”

I spun my chair in Zeb’s direction and started ogling his ass again. “Just imagine how hot we’d look on Halloween, dressed as superheroes.”

Jimmy ignored my comment. “We need to get back to work, my friend. Lizard will fire us if we don’t. She’s on a fucking rampage this week, and no one knows why.”

Lucinda Lizardo played office manager at work, keeping her staff of ten in line. At fifty-three, angry most of the time, and similar to an overweight iguana, she ran a tight ship and hated when employees decided to take short breaks. Lizard, as everyone in the office called her behind her back, had worked for EyeZeal for the last twenty years. Attached to Copper Carlow’s right hip, Lizardo had made a career at EyeZeal.

EyeZeal, in a nutshell, designed eyewear for men, women, and children. The models were sold to companies to manufacture. Eventually, the eyewear ended up in places like America’s Best and Pearle Vision. Sometimes EyeZeal sold their products directly to eye boutiques. My employer crafted sunglasses, reading glasses, protective eyewear, and sports eyewear such as helmet sun shields and swimming googles. Copper Carlow opened the business in 1991, a year after Zeb, his only child, was born.

“I want to marry that man,” I told Jimmy, but my comment landed on deaf ears since he returned to his desk and whatever work he had to do.

A minute later, Lizard moved up to my desk and said, “Mr. Keep, do you plan on watching other employees all afternoon, or are you going to do your job?”

My job as a graphics eyewear designer felt like the most boring task on the planet. Basically, I worked with a graphics Windows-based program and designed eyewear, concentrating on sunglasses. I created such styles and lines as the Leopard, the Jackie, and the Mystic for women. My eyewear for men included the Herring, the Staffordshire, and the Rifleman. I basically shaped temples, arms, and lenses on the computer. It took me approximately six weeks to create a proof of the frames, which were accepted or rejected by Copper Carlow and his son, Zeb.

I removed my view from Zeb’s perfect ass, spun back around, and studied the flat screen in front of me. I told Lizard exactly what she wanted to hear, “My job, of course.”

“Of course,” she huffed and went to pick on somebody else in the office.

* * * *

Zebwin Christopher Carlow dropped out of heaven and landed in my lap. Okay, not really. Rather, he finished his degree at Temple in business, moved back to Pittsburgh, took a few years off to write a mystery, failed in the publishing world, moved to Hawaii with his “best friend,” returned to Pittsburgh three years later, and decided to work for his daddy, Copper.

Zeb, as he liked to be called, did everything in the office: accounts payable, filing, spoke with clients about their eyewear contracts, cleaned, and opened the mail. Zeb worked at EyeZeal for the last three years; man-food for my eyes during the afternoons.