“Okay, fine.” I huffed, standing from the chair and walking towards him. “I woke up and then I couldn’t sleep, and I freaked out.” Pinching my fingers as close as they could go, I finished, “Just a little bit.”
He didn’t answer me, but his brows twitched the tiniest bit, his scowl softening as I continued to ramble about fake dating, charades and breaking rules.
“Evy,” he said, and I took a breath. “Why exactly were you freaking out?”
“Why areyoufreaking out now?” The first rule of questions, when you don’t want to answer, repeat the question back to the asker.
“You were gone.” He answered easily, and I flinched, his words landing heavier than I expected.
His hand reached up, hesitating for only a second before finding my wrist and pulling me into him.
My body collided with his chest, his arms around me like he was afraid I was going to vanish, and I gave into the relief coursing through me, letting my head fall against his body.
“Sorry,” I said genuinely. “I freaked out and didn’t want you to feel pressured to be or do anything.”
He remained silent for a while, simply holding me to him.
I missed him. God, it had been a couple of hours, and I’d missed him. I was screwed.
“When you leave, like for work or to see the girls, but especially out of my bed after a night like we shared,” he murmured into the top of my head, “can you just tell me first?”
His voice was soft, almost broken, and so full of vulnerability that I nearly told him I’d never leave, that I’d stay forever if he asked. “Because then I can chain you to me so you’re stuck,” he added, trying to lighten the mood with a wry smile. I couldn’t help but laugh, lifting my chin to rest it on his chest and meeting his eyes.
“I think you might like having me as your fiancée,” I teased, tapping my left hand against his heart.
He raised an eyebrow, a slow smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Oh, what gave you that impression?” He asked, his hands coming up to cradle my face, fingers brushing back curls, before leaning down and kissing me deeply. I sighed into his mouth, feeling the weight of everything he hadn’t said as I melted into him. He brought his hands down and around to cup my backside, and I felt him hardening against me, felt my own body leaning into him and his resulting groan awoke all my nerve endings.
“I want to do so many things right now,” I admitted, mewling when he ground into me, “but can I show you something?” I asked with more willpower than I ever thought possible.
He kissed down my neck, his hands hungrily roaming my body as he nodded.
“Better be good,” he joked, pressing a final kiss to my mouth. “Because I have a few things of my own I want to do.”
I dragged the ledgers across the desk in an act which took significant mental strength. Pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, I found the section I was looking for. “I must have read these at least fifteen times this morning and that doesn’t account for the other twenty times before today.” He movedbehind me dusting kisses along my neck distractedly as he hummed into my skin.
“And while I have a fair few questions about your label names, which make zero sense to me, I also have some other questions.” Resting his chin on my shoulder, he pulled me into him.
“I’ve never met anyone who asks as many questions as you do.”
“I’m not surprised. Now can you explain your losses to me?” I pointed to a column on the far right of the page. “Like this section, how do you come up with these numbers?” His scribblings were easy enough to follow, especially as many were now programmed into the database - electronics for the win - only some were still done by hand, likely on the fly as they calculated sales and stock.
“I need to look closer,” he said, begrudgingly letting me go and reaching for the book. “I’m not sure who wrote these ones, but the losses are based on evaporation. We have to account for this during distilling because we naturally lose a certain amount. So, there will always be some padding of loss to factor this in. It’s called angel’s share.”
“But based on most of your documentation, that’s about 2% per barrel, right?”
“Yeah, if you’re being generous,” he answered. “Some years it might be higher but now that we have the temperature controls, I’d say it’s less than 2% per barrel most of the time.”
“Right. So, this label,” I pointed to one which was a numbered pattern, “52225 - whatever the hell that means - is inconsistent.” I said, “And not only because its sum is an odd number starting with four.” I shivered at the double negative in my world, and he grinned.
“Odd numbers aside, I’m not following.”
“Based on the notes in each adjacent column, which indicate the temperature was normal during this three-year distillation, there should be at least another thirty barrels of this label. But I can’t find them on the floor anywhere. “So, unless mycalculator is broken—” I held up my hand to stop the argument I knew was coming. “Something isn’t adding up.”
“Your calculator is older than religion,” he jibed, “but there shouldn’t be gaps in the inventory. Let’s go count. And if you’re wrong, I’m buying you a new calculator.” He reached for my hand, and my heart soared but I kept my brows pinched.
“How dare you!” I tried to get angry, but I was already smiling. “And you should be careful, baby, once I start counting, I could go all the way,” I threw in with a spark of mischief as he shot me a look of joy.
