Nash has a lopsided grin on his face when I finally drag my eyes back to him.
I narrow my eyes in response, but that just makes his grin widen.
“Well, I’m going to take my baseball mitts and leave this super important work to you two,” Nash says after I turn my attention back to my work.
He leaves us to it, and we fall into a quiet rhythm, both focused on inspecting, cleaning, and turning off each of the earpieces.
As we work, something settles in my chest, something that makes me feel a little less alone.
Chapter seventeen
Carter
“Didyoujustmakea pot joke?” I ask my mom as she giggles on my phone’s screen.
“Well, isn’t that what Amsterdam is known for?”
“Yep. That’s it,” I say, hoping my mother doesn’t know anything about their red-light district. There is only so much I can discuss with my mother, even if she’d be open to the conversation.
“Did you watch theTed Lassoepisode that takes place here yet?”
Watching the show together had been a fun part of our routine back home, and we decided to keep watching it independently while I was gone. Neither of us has enough going on in our lives to fill a whole conversation without the help of current events or a shared TV show.
“There’s an episode in Tokyo?” Mom asks, making my heart clench, even as I force a smile onto my face.
“I’m still in Amsterdam,” I say, trying to walk the fine line between correcting her and just letting it go.
“Oh, right. Of course you are. We were just talking about that!”
I can tell my mom’s smile is forced, nothing like the broad smile she usually gives away so freely. As terrible as it is for me to watch my mom go through the stages of dementia, I know it is so much worse for her.
“Anyway, enough about Amsterdam. Tell me about your dinner with Kelsey tonight!” My mom’s smile turns genuine as she asks.
Thisshe remembers. I casually mentioned in a text that I needed to chat as early as possible tonight because Kelsey and I have plans to visit one of her restaurants, and my mom won’t let it go. I even got a text from Bill about it.
Knowing I’m leading on my mom—and possibly my own heart—but unwilling to put a damper on my mom’s joy, I tell her our plans, not bothering to correct her when she calls it a date and tells me to wear something nice.
I don’t tell her that since I am living out of a carry-on suitcase, I only have one option. Since Kelsey’s been in the same black outfit the other times we went to dinner, my guess is she’s in the same boat. Not that I’m complaining. There’s something about the contrast between the sleek, almost casual cut to her clothes and the wave of blonde hair that captures her entirety so well. It’s like she’s effortlessly put together, but there’s this undeniable wildness behind those calm eyes—like she could take over the world—or tear it all down—on a whim.
Any denial I’d been living in about my crush on Kelsey fading with time has long since been debunked. That woman fully and completely has my attention, and it’s the most confusing thing I’ve ever felt. Because even when I remind myself that she’s my competition, that Ihaveto win this contract instead of her, my heart doesn’t seem tocare. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on my feelings, that I’ve shoved them back down inside of me where they need to stay—at least until after this whole Jaxon Steele business is done with—she does something that throws me back on a collision course. A smile, an intelligent suggestion, something so small, yet it’s like she holds the power to unravel every single plan I’ve made.
I’ve woken up every single night this week sweaty and breathing hard from dreams of her. Dreams I most certainly should not be thinking about while on the phone with my mom.
“Well,” my mom says with a knowing smirk as I force my attention back to our conversation, “I’ll let you go. Tell Kelsey hi for me.”
“Love you, Mom,” I say.
“Have so much fun out in Tokyo tonight, love. You deserve it.”
***
“So, I had a weird conversation with Izzy today,” Kelsey says as she sits across the small wooden table from me. We’re at a farm-to-table restaurant that is in one side of a functional greenhouse. The tables are small and placed closely together, my large frame never feeling as out of place as it does now, sitting in a wicker chair that was made for men one hundred years ago, not giants like me. Thankfully, Kelsey offered to be the one to squeeze between our table and the one next to it to get to the bench seat.
She’s not wearing the same black jumpsuit I had prepared myself for, and when she took off her coat to reveal a form-fitting navy-blue dress that ends midway down her thigh, I swear I almost swallowedmy tongue. I’m pretty sure she didn’t catch me staring, but I can’t be sure.
“Oh yeah? How’s Izzy doing?” I respond.
“I’m not sure. We didn’t really talk about that.”
