Where the hell did that come from?
He straightens. “No. Says the man who’s been watching you all night trying to be brave when you clearly wanted to run away the second I walked in.”
Busted.
My face goes hot again. “I wasn’t actually going to run away.”
“You were calculating window exits.”
“Ground floor windows,” I mutter. “They barely count.”
Marco laughs. It’s brief but genuine, and I feel absurdly proud of myself for causing it.
“You know what your problem is?” he asks.
“I have multiple problems. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“You think your value is in the metrics. The views, the followers, the external validation.” He leans forward again, elbows on the table. “But that’s not what makes you interesting.”
“Oh really. What makes me interesting then, restaurateur wise guy?”
“You climbed out a window to avoid someone. You AirDropped a meme calling me Mr. Panty-Wetting to half the bar. You Venmo’d me sixty-nine dollars and then died inside.” His smile is devastating. “You’re beautifully... unscripted... compared to most of the people I usually meet... and I find it very endearing.”
I blink at him. “That’s literally just a list of my most embarrassing moments from the last month.”
“Exactly.”
“You have very weird taste in endearing.”
“I have excellent taste in endearing.”
We’re flirting.
Definitely flirting.
Happening in real time.
And I have no idea how to process it because the last time I flirted with someone was probably during the previous presidential administration.
Also, he’s my brother’s best friend.
And a widower.
And, and, and.
My brain helpfully supplies a thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea.
My body supplies exactly zero.
Of course.
“So what’s the plan here?” I ask, trying to sound casual and probably failing. “You’re going to collect my embarrassing moments like baseball cards?”
“Something like that.”
Before I can formulate a response that doesn’t involve climbing him like the tree I mentioned earlier, someone appears next to our table.
A guy. Mid-thirties, finance bro energy, with cologne that positivelyreeks.
