“What?”
My face goes hotter than the ongoing heatwave, and I tuck my hair behind my ear and look skyward for a beat to regain composure. “Don’t make me say it again, Ethan.”
“Bee.” He chuckles. “I learned how to fly helicopters.”
“Oh. Well. You know I live in LA now. Do you know how many helicopters I saw on my drive this morning alone? I’d have to switch to texting you or I’d be calling you all the time.”
“Miss me?”
“Yeah.” My response comes so quickly that I blink in surprise. “It’s not like I’ve been calling you every day.”
“Or watching infomercials every night.”
I beam. And awkwardly make eye contact with a colleague right then and there, who smiles back at me and waves. Hiding my phone from Rob’s line of sight and masking the embarrassment burning through me with a light grin, I shuffle quickly to my car.
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “Ethan, I’m gonna have to move to Alaska now and change my name. I accidentally made a super-long eye contact with Rob.”
“Who’s Rob?”
“This guy who works with me,” I grumble. “He smells like ham and burps more than Paul ever did during calls.”
“Pauldoesburp a lot during calls,” Ethan groans. “Why would you bring this up? Now it’ll be the only thing I’ll be able to focus on.”
“Okay, it’s not so bad,” I say. “Just do what I do and only reach out to him via email.”
Ethan snorts. “Any advice on how to handle Joe?”
“Lower your expectations, and you’re less likely to be annoyed by him when he asks for more time to brush up on SOPs so he’s quote-unquoterefreshed.”
“Christ,” Ethan interjects. “He said that this morning.”
“Word of the wise. Don’t rely on Joe for anything.”
“Yeah. I think even Ed finally caught on,” Ethan says. “He must have buyer’s remorse ’cause you should have seen the emails this morning.Andwitness the update meeting. Joe erased a month’s worth of data from one of the post-production reports.”
I suck air between my teeth. “No. How did that even happen?”
“I don’t know, Bee. But I’ve never seen Ed that angry before.”
“You didn’t bro it up for him? Throw in some baseball scores?”
“Nah,” Ethan says. “I only looked out for the company chatbot.”
Despite myself, warmth unfurls in my chest and spreads across my cheeks. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror, spotting the pleased curl to the edge of my lips. “Only me?”
“Only you.”
My grin widens, slipping when I hear someone honk behind me.
“What was that?” The concern in Ethan’s voice is palpable.
“Someone wants my parking spot, and they’re super impatient about it. Anyway, I should go. I’m supposed to pick up Bell. We have dinner at Vincent and Betty’s tonight. But, uh, yeah. I’ll text you about all the helicopters I see when I get there.” I pause. “Are we still on for farming tonight?”
“Raincheck? Lara asked me to help pick up this desk she saw listed online?—”
“No worries,” I say, then frown at the side-view mirror when the driver honks again. “This chatbot will text you later.”
“Looking forward to it.”
