“Back to garlic?”
“Right. The garlic is all harvested by now.” Cami takes a sip of her coffee. “So, every year at the end of June, we host Garlic Fest, and it’s this giant outdoor party at our house where David and his pretentious chef friends cook the whole menu, and they invite their pretentious wine friends—”
“And their pretentious bread friends,” I say.
“And their pretentious salsa friends,” Cami adds. “Anyway. It’s tomorrow, and I think you should come, since you’re interested in the Austin food scene. Your friend Brooks will be there. I can email you the details.”
Will is smiling so broadly now that in a sight of true rarity, both of his dimples are showing. Still no teeth, though. Only Eugenia gets that smile, apparently. “I have,” he says, “an abundance of questions.”
“Tuck them into your back pocket, and if you still have questions after you come and hang out for an hour, I’ll answer them,” Cami offers. “Doing so now would spoil the charm.”
Will looks at me. “You’ll be there, I assume?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“With her biker gang,” Cami adds.
Will rubs his temple again. “So many questions.”
Camila gets pulled into a conversation with her department’s intern. Will continues to lean against the desk and just…look at me.His lips are pressed together, his eyes like thinly cracked glacial ice.
“Sticking around?” I ask.
“Iamtempted to request a meeting in case I can’t have you for a while.”
I rest my chin on my hand. “You must realize the suggestive way you phrased that is either deliberate or obtuse, right?”
“If it was obtuse,” he drawls, “how would I have realized?”
“Stop flirting with me.”
“You’re the one batting your eyelashes.”
“You started it,” I say.
He levels me with a flat, scorched look. “That wasn’t evencloseto the way I flirt, Josephine, and anyway, I was serious. You’ve been traveling so much I haven’t had time to schedule anything with you recently.”
“I could push my ten thirty with Asset Protection.”
“It’s nice to hear you prefer me over Asset Protection,” Will says. “Eugenia and I are going to be thick as thieves, wrangling your schedule.”
I snort. “It can’t bethatdifficult to schedule time with me.”
“You are literally the hardest person to schedule around that I’ve ever worked with,” Will says. “For instance, where were you yesterday?”
“Los Angeles. There was a port issue. Mice ate through some of our clothes.”
He makes a nauseated face. “Well, that’s unfortunate, but did you do anything fun while you were there?”
“I got a massage at the hotel salon to de-stress over the mice.”
“I mean, did you do anything fun in thecity?”
“I never go into the city on work trips.”
Will’s face contorts in alarm. “Why not?”
“Because it’s aworktrip?”
