That makes me laugh—for the first time in more than a week. It gathers in my belly, expelling itself alongside the frantic nervousness I’ve been carrying in my gut since Will left me by that fence line at Cami and David’s place.
“For the record, I’m an aspiring vegetarian.”
“For the record,” Eugenia replies. “You don’t need the label of vegetarianism—or a B Corp Certification, for that matter—for me to know what kind of person you are.”
It’s a nice sentiment. If only I were biologically capable of caring less about perception.
“I’ll be better after the supplier trip,” I say. “I don’t want you to think this is healthy or normal behavior.”
“Oh, I’m aware. I know you’re, like, a borderline millennial, and I’m ambitious, make no mistake. But at the end of the day, romanticizing the grind is not in my generational makeup.”
I smirk at her. “Neither are corporate flings, apparently.”
“I can make an exception for the CEO and her very hot consultant.”
“We aren’t going there,” I say.
“Yet,” Eugenia says.
My brain spins back to my childhood, recalling my brother, Robbie, repeating, “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object,” over and over during his Batman phase. He said it all the time.
Unstoppable force, immovable object.
Will and me.
I can’t put into words why I think of us like that, but I do. And I’m worried what it means. Or rather, what itwillmean, when it’s just the two of us.
Alone, together, on the other side of the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
To get to the first supplier we’re visiting in Peru, I must fly first to Atlanta (where Will and I plan to meet), second to Lima, and finally to the Alfredo Rodríguez Ballón International Airport in Arequipa—a Peruvian city close to the southernmost tip of the country and nestled right below the Andes Mountains.
Will has already arrived from New York by the time I deplane in Atlanta. I meet him at a Panda Express near our gate for the Lima flight. He’s dressed in professional clothes—slacks and a button-down—but his honey-brown hair looks messy and tugged-at. He’s devouring orange chicken and fried rice when I walk up to him, wheeling my suitcase alongside me.
He stands up that very instant, swallowing.
“You really need to stop standing when you see me,” I say.
“It’s a sign of respect,” he says.
“Respect me less.”
Will’s eyes heat, one brow rising comically. “Are you—”
“Not like that!”
Will laughs, and the sound is warm enough to liquefy my spine. He scoops his sweatshirt off the seat across from him and I sit, eyeing the book on the table near his food.Madhouse at the End of the Earth.The jacket of the book is torn in one spot.
Don’t show interest. Don’t show interest. Don’t—
“What are you reading?” I ask, completely un-fucking-able to help myself.
“It’s about explorers on a ship in Antarctica,” he says, his voice jumping with… boyish excitement? “And it’s a true story, but sort of fictionalized.”
“You like to read?”
“Yes.” He says it very simply. Our eyes move from the book back toward each other.
