Chapter 2: The challenge

Emma Swan lived in a helluva nice place, Neal remarked, after he walked past the main gate of the luxury condo and found her waiting next to the door to her apartment.

"You're early," she said, with a smile.

He smiled back, still wearing his sunglasses as he looked around the place. The truth was that, when you lived in a bug, you could hardly wait until the sun rose. Sleeping in was not a viable option.

"Wow," he whistled, nodding at her with an impressed grin. "You don't get those in Manhattan, I'll tell you this."

"Is that where you used to live?" she asked, welcoming him into her home.

"Yup," he replied, not really willing to go deeper into that topic.

"By the way, I'm sorry, but I totally forgot to ask," she said. "Where exactly are you living here, in Tallahassee?"

Now that was another topic he was not really willing to address.

"Uh… Just around the corner," he said, and it was not necessarily a lie. That was where he had parked his car.

"Really?" she asked, with a frown. She lived in quite a posh neighborhood, and if he really was her neighbor, something was slightly off.

"Temporarily," he added.

"Living with a friend?" she asked, tilting her head.

He smiled, finally taking off his sunglasses to look into her eyes.

"I guess you could say that."

'Sounds more like a girlfriend to me…' Emma thought, as her gaze shifted from his eyes to his chest. She liked his T-shirt. Not too loose, not too tight. Her eyes drifted downward, spent a moment looking at his belt, and then went on to his jeans. Then up again to his chest, to his arms… He had nice arms. And hands…

"Please don't be offended by my question…"

She liked his voice too.

"… but how old are you?" he asked.

'Old enough,' her mind quickly replied.

"Why do you wanna know?" she asked, shaking her head to wake up from her trance. Damn those hormones! Of course he had noticed her staring, and now he had gotten the wrong idea! Now he wanted to know if she was legal, obviously because he now thought she wanted to… do things with him! Which was clearly not the case! She was not thinking about it. Not at all!

"I just find it remarkable that you live here all by yourself. You look rather young."

"Trust me, I'm old enough to live by myself," she replied, with a snicker.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Neal was quick to add. "That is not what I meant. It's just…" he stopped, and pondered for a moment. Maybe it was too soon to ask such personal questions, about family and all. "Oh, never mind."

She felt she was blushing.

"Well, let's go in, shall we?" she said, looking at her own shoes as she opened the door to her apartment and urged him in.

Neal's jaw dropped slightly, and not so much because of how big the place was, nor because of the tasteful furniture and decoration… What had immediately caught his eye was the fact the whole apartment seemed to have been swallowed by a giant wave, than spit back onto the shore in a pile of destruction. There were bags, clothes and papers everywhere he looked at.

"And that is your challenge," Emma said, with a feline grin.

Neal turned to look at her with a frown. So much for the kinky, sexy options he had thought of.

"The thing is," she continued, crossing her arms as she walked around him. "I have been very busy at work lately, so my stuff has been piling up, as you can see," she saw him raise an eyebrow as she spoke, and had to bite back a chuckle. "I need someone who can clean up this mess, and also… Somewhere in here, there is a bank statement that I really, really need," she handed him a paper with a short description of the document she was looking for. "If you find it, you will be rewarded generously…"

Neal looked up from the paper to her face. He could be wrong - and he generally was, about a lot of things – but he had the clear impression Emma Swan, his potential employer, was casting rather unholy looks towards him, and not for the first time that morning. She was lucky she hadn't yet showed him the guidelines about sexual harassment; if she had, she would be in deep trouble. That is… if Neal himself hadn't been casting his own share of unholy looks towards her as well.

"…with two hundred dollars, cash."

"Oh," he muttered. He had thought of another reward – he really had to get his head out of the gutter! – but Heaven knew how much he could do with some money. And not just some money. She was offering him the equivalent of almost one week of work!

"Think you can do it?" she asked, with a defiant smirk.

"Ms. Swan, if I were you," he said, wrinkling his forehead as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I would call the agency to say this job opening has been filled."

"Confidence, nice. You sure can talk the talk…" she said, tilting her head. "Now let's see if you walk the walk."

Neal looked away as the girl in front of him said those last words, biting his tongue not to return the taunt. He needed the job. He would deal with his other… urges later.

"I'm heading to work now," she continued, looking thoroughly entertained with herself. "I wrote my phone number in the board near the fridge. I'll be back at the end of the day, so that gives you some eight to nine hours."

He saw her fling a bag over her shoulder, as she picked up the keys to her car from a bowl near the door.

"Use them well."

She smiled, eyeing him for a last time before walking out.

At the end of the day, Neal let himself fall onto one of the chairs in the solarium, feeling absolutely exhausted, and that was because he hadn't done any laundry, ironing or cooking yet. Whoever said housekeeping was an easy job had no idea whatsoever what they were talking about.

After spending the last seven hours of his day vacuuming, dusting, sorting out papers, folding clothes and putting garbage away, he realized how stupid he had been to think he was remotely qualified for that job. The organizational part of the deal, so far, had worked out fine: the apartment was looking good, and clean. It was the other tasks that haunted him. Laundry, as far as he was concerned, was all about shoving clothes in a washing machine, waiting for half an hour or so, and then shoving them in the dryer and waiting a little more. However, after one quick glance at the variety of washing detergents, softeners and bleach on the shelves of the laundry room, he was sure he was headed to disaster.

To make matters worse, Emma Swan had nothing but four closets full of clothes of the most varied materials, which obviously meant that there had to be some sort of specific procedure for every single one of them. Oh, dear. That thought inevitably led to its subsequent event: ironing. He had never been good at ironing, he had never even bothered getting better at it over the years. He considered it one of the dullest and most stupid chores humanity had ever known.

And then there was cooking. He knew enough not to starve: eggs, rice, pasta, the eventual beef stir fry… His repertoire, however, was less than impressive: what if Emma expected a different meal every day? What it she was used to some sort of Cordon Bleu chef dancing around her kitchen with scallops and shallots?

He stopped thinking about what could go wrong, and concentrated on what he knew would go right.

Apparently, his future boss had the hots for him.

He frowned. Now that he thought about it, that was just another thing that could go wrong. Very wrong, as a matter of fact.

"Neal?"

Downstairs, Emma had just arrived back home, and called out for him, after opening the door.

When he finally arrived at the living room, he realized she was looking around the spotless tables, chairs and shelves with nothing but awe in her eyes.

"This is wonderful!" she said with a wide grin, and he had to smile as well – there was something contagious about her happiness, something that rubbed off on him even when he was not looking. "Great job!"

When he stood in front of her, she paused, with a frown. She sniffed once, and then twice.

"Is this cherry blossom that I smell?" she asked.

"Oh, it is, yes," he muttered, scratching the back of his neck with a guilty expression in his eyes. "When I was done, I decided to take a shower… but I forgot I had no soap with me, so I had to use your shower gel. I'm sorry."

She stared at his puppy eyes with a mixture of amusement and anger. When he was done, he decided to take a shower. The audacity! He had taken a shower in her bathroom, after he was done! With her shower gel! And she had missed it!

"I take it you used one of my towels as well?" she muttered.

"I did," he replied, and his face showed no sign of concern this time. "But I washed it and dried it right after that."

"Oh."

She took off her glasses, trying to buy some time as she rubbed her eyes. It had to be the hormones. There was no other explanation as to why she lost focus every time he smiled, or why she got those fuzzy feelings every time her eyes rested upon his.

He had known him for what? 24 hours? How pathetic of hers.

"So…" she spoke again, after clearing her throat. "Have you found my bank statement?"

His eyes sparked with pride as he held up an envelope.

"I don't know if you did it on purpose…" he said, "but it was actually tucked inside a box of condoms."

'One of the two dozen I found around the place,' he mentally remarked.

"I see you have an eye for detail," she replied, crossing her arms with a gleeful smile. "I am impressed!"

Of course she had done it on purpose. And at the time, hiding it in a box of condoms seemed a hilarious idea. Now that she looked at him, and realized the hidden message she ended up sending out, she regretted it immensely.

She blushed. There was always hope he would cut her some slack, somehow.

"Congratulations, Mr. Cassidy," she announced, trying to hide her embarrassment with her Freudian slip. "You're hired!"

Neal reached out to shake her hand, as his chest filled with relief. Finally, he would be able to pay some of his bills. Maybe buy a new suit… find a place to live. And there was still that extraordinary plus: Emma Swan was adorable.

"And here… are your 200 bucks."

He took the money from her hands, and had to stifle the laughter rattling inside him. The girl was officially his boss, and that put a very interesting spin on everything.

"I'll be expecting you tomorrow at seven," he heard her say, before they said their goodbyes.