Even though he didn’t seem to see it.
“They must have photoshopped your face,” he said. Which was good, in one way, because it meant that he didn’t believe her expression was anything but what it absolutely had been. But in another it was bad, because now she had to keep pushing. She had to convince him of what thecrowdhad seen.
Even though it made her face heat to do it.
“And my body, too, I’m guessing.”
“It isn’t your fault your chest is doing that. You just have… you have a lot of that sort of thing. So you know, when you stand that way it makes it seem like things are happening. Like a lot of things are happening. Even though obviously they’re not. I mean, clearly you would never purposefully arch into me like that,” he said, voice wavering all over the place as he did so. Twice he had to stop and swallow, too hard.
And she could see that color creeping up over his collar.
Just out of the corner of her eye, because she couldn’t stand to look at him directly right at that moment. But it was definitely there. And it deepened, when she replied, “I can’t believe you just called my titsthat sort of thing.”
“Well, I’m not going to be gross about your body on top of all of this.”
“Nothing you say will ever make me think that. It just makes you seem in deep denial about what has happened. They saw what they saw, and came to their conclusions, and now we’re in big, big, huge trouble.”
“Okay, but even if we are they’ll figure it out.”
“Figurewhatout?” she asked, and now she did glance at him.
But he just looked baffled by her bafflement. “The university stuff.”
“You mean confirmation that we knew each other years ago.”
“But we didn’t just know each other. Wehatedeach other. Everyone will back that up, every person from college they ask will say we argued constantly, that we couldn’t get along, that I badly hurt your fee— That I made some mis—” he said, that weird swallowing thing he was doing now so bad it was cutting whole words in two. She couldn’t even tell what he was trying to say, really.
Not that it mattered. They had bigger problems.
“Miller, hey. Focus. Listen to me. That will not matter.”
“How on earth won’t it? How on earth couldn’t it?”
“Because they’ll just think of it as enemies-to-lovers.”
There, she thought.That makes sense.
But he just rumpled his face up in disgust.
“That soundsterrible.”
“It isn’t though. It’s the opposite.”
“Even though by definition enemies cannot be lovers. I mean, what are they doing, clambering into bed with knives at each other’s throats? Accidentally falling onto each other’s genitals while attempting to aim their death rays?”
He made a sound that was almost a chuckle, and shook his head. Likeoh, ho ho ho, these silly fools. While she did her best not to lose her mind. She had to take a second, carefully put down her phone, breathe slowly. Otherwise she was likely to explode and let everyone hear the lie.
Instead of keeping her expression neutral.
Then saying it in a low, tight hiss that only he could hear. “Yes, for fuck’s sake. Yes, that is exactly what they do and exactly what people eat up. Oh mygod, how did you ever become so successful in this industry. I mean, what did you think whenNever Not Yousold a million copies?”
“What I usually do when that happens. Everybody has gone mad.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god. I am going towalkinto theocean.”
She tried to put her face into her hands then. Surreptitiously, behind the menu, so only he could see how despairing she was. But just as she went to, he spoke. “Hey,don’tsay that. No, don’t look at me that way, I mean it,” he said, loud and brutal enough that it startled her into stopping dead. And the rapped fist on the table—lord almighty. It felt as if he’d done it somewhere inside her rib cage.
Because someone will have heard, she told herself.
