“Work,” she admitted.“I need to put some new pieces up on my Etsy site, it’s almost sold out.”
“How’d you get into that?”he asked.“The jewelry making.”
“I’ve always been interested in it,” she said with a shrug and continued to eat.“Played around with beads and bracelets as a kid, you know how you do.Never thought I’d do anything with it, really.”She picked up her water.“Then in college, I needed a science credit to graduate.Why you need a science credit to get a marketing degree is beyond me, but that was the requirement.There was a gemology class, and I thought, well, that’s better than having to dissect something.”
He stopped chewing to grimace.“I had to do that.It was gross.”
“Right?Anyway, I thought it was fascinating.After I graduated, I got a job and did the whole eight-to-five office thing.”
“You weren’t working at the bar?”
She shook her head.“Not then.I’d spent all that money and time on my degree, I was going to use it.”
He nodded in understanding.
“So anyway, I’d come home after these long, stressful days, and I’d sketch jewelry designs.Earrings, rings, necklaces, even diadems and tiaras, just fun stuff.And it was soothing, and satisfying.Much more satisfying than being a junior marketing executive.”
She stabbed another sausage.“One day Bailey told me she’d heard about a class at the community college she wanted to take, Jewelry Making 101.But she didn’t want to take it alone.”She looked up at him.“Which was, of course, a big fat lie.”
“She tricked you into taking the class.”
“She burned herself twice and stabbed herself once the first night we used tools.”Smiling at the memory, Chloe chewed sausage.“She’s great with a pair of scissors, but with anything else she’s a disaster.”
“How long did it take you to quit your job?”he wanted to know.
“Eight months.It would’ve been less, but I’m stubborn,” she admitted.“And I was getting some Mom-guilt about not using that degree.”
“But you are, aren’t you?”He gestured with his fork.“You’re just marketing yourself now instead of someone else.”
“Took me a while to come up with that argument,” she admitted.“And Mom came around.She wants me to be happy, she was just worried I wouldn’t be able to feed myself.”
“Mothers do worry about that kind of thing.”
“Mmm.”She took a long drink of her water.“Anyway, Mo and Carrie offered to let me work in the bar and live above for cheap, so Mom stopped worrying about me starving to death.”
“Good.Do you mind if I ask how the jewelry business is doing?”
“I don’t mind.”Deciding she was full, she set her napkin on her plate.“It pays for itself, which at this point is enough.I’m funneling most of the profit back into it, buying better stones and materials.”
He jerked his chin.“Are those yours?”
She reached up to finger the earrings she was wearing.Long columns of rose gold, twisted around rough-cut rose quarts stones.“Yes.”
“They’re pretty.And they suit you.”
She smiled.“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, then set down his fork with a sigh.“I can’t eat any more of this.”
Half the omelet sat on his plate, oozing ham and cheese, onions and mushrooms.“Can I try a bite?”
He nudged the plate over.“Help yourself.”
She cut into it, forked up a bite.“Okay, that’s really good.”
“I know.”Knox raised a hand to signal the server.“Jesse’s going to be really happy when I bring it to him for lunch.”
Chloe toyed with her fork while Knox got his to-go box and a refill on his coffee.When he was sliding the omelet into the container, she asked, “Can I ask you something?”
