She waves me off again, and I turn to the agent at the counter.
“Looks like it’s just me.”
I get the paperwork all situated, and we head to where the car is waiting for us.
“Hungry?” I ask once I have our bags in the trunk and am heading toward the driver’s door.
“Starving. Thanks again for that muffin.”
I nod my acknowledgment. “Of course. Glad it helped. What sounds good?”
“Take me to one of your favorite places. Is there some kind of food you can get here that you can’t get in New York?”
“You mean like Rocky Mountain oysters?” I say in a playful tone as we get in the car.
She reaches for her seatbelt, obviously confused on what I just said. “What is that? Do I even want to know?”
I laugh out loud, not able to hold it back. Rocky Mountain oysters were always a joke between my brothers and me. “Probably not. It’s the testicles of a bull or bison.”
Her eyes shoot up, and she turns to me so fast that her hair goes whipping across her glossed lips and stays there. “What?” she asks as she moves her hair, making a small part of me wish she hadn’t. “Do you really eat that?”
I start the car, then tilt my head back, turning her way. “No, I don’t. But people really do. They even say it’s a delicacy.”
She acts like she’s gagging, and I burst out laughing.
“How can that be a delicacy?”
“Some even think it’s an aphrodisiac.” I raise my eyebrows, flirting with her in a way, then instantly regret it.
Why did I just do that? This is a work trip, and this is Zoe, of all people.
I put the car in reverse and decide to end the conversation there, hoping she didn’t get weirded out by what I just did.
I drive us to a steakhouse, knowing they’ll have enough options for anything she’ll want as well as a bison burger for me.The car is quiet—too quiet—so I turn up the radio that’s already set to a country station.
“Country music okay with you?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the road.
“I don’t know much of it, but that’s fine.”
Her repeating the lyric from “High Road” during our fight after meeting with the client pops into my brain. “Then how did you know the line ‘I don’t need a ticket to your shit show’ that you threw at me the other day?”
I turn to her, genuinely curious, and watch as she flinches.
“I, um … I mean, I know a little. It’s just not something I listen to every day. And that song has the girl version, so I hear that more often than the original.”
I face the road and nod with what she said making sense.
It takes us about fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant, and she’s typing away on her phone the entire time.
“That must be some group chat,” I tease.
She instantly places her phone in her lap, face down, like she’s embarrassed that I noticed. “Sorry. My friend is having a nervous breakdown, so we’re all texting back and forth.”
“Let me guess … it’s over a guy?”
Her breath catches, but she tries to laugh it off. “Isn’t it always?”
I chuckle, but don’t respond, not wanting to go there with her.
