Page 27 of The Trouble with Love and Ink
The question made me pause because I could letter in my sleep. I’d done favorite song lyrics on brass plates and simple messages on teacups. I’d personalized headbands for the entire running club during high school. I’d addressed all the graduation invites for my family. And the gifting over the years: personalizing shoe boxes, perfume bottles, supply boxes—you name it. There was no guesswork to my style.
I had more experience than Hailey—twelve years’ worth.
“No,” I answered. “I’m better.”
He appraised me. And under his gaze, my insides turned runny. He was handsome. There was no getting around it. I wish the enemy-asshole side of him canceled out the good-looking side, but no. My damn hormones were going wild at how close we stood—so close I could feel his breath on my temple, could get high off that fresh soapy scent of his, could notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed past that lone freckle on his throat.
“So,” I said a little too breathily, in desperate need of conversation to keep from floating away on balloons inflated with pheromones. “Are you going to rat me out to your sister?”
“That depends,” he answered, reaching past me to get to the door. Just that one movement, where he had to lean further into my space, made the air thin out in the room.
“Depends on what?” I asked a little dreamily while he reached for his things on the filing cabinet.
“On how you do with the mirror this weekend?” he said, stepping past me to get into the hall.
The lack of his breath and his scent and his proximity cleared the haze I’d been in, allowing me to finish the conversation like a normal functioning human and not a Pepe le Pew floating toward Penelope.
“What are you talking about?”
“The mirror that you are writing the seating chart on,” he replied, annoyed. Like, if I’d been Victoria’s real calligrapher, I’d have known immediately what he was referring to.
“No. Yes.” I shook my head and put out my hands with a frustrated sigh. “I know about the mirror.”
“Good, because I told Victoria I’d drop it off at your place.” My eyes widened, but he kept going. “You know, since we’re old friends.” He made a show of looking around to make sure no one else occupied the hall. “Sorry,” he mock whispered, “Since Hailey and I are old friends.”
“Wait—” I started because, damn it, I wasn’t supposed to be taking on more of this job. I was supposed to quit. I was going to quit.
“I have to go,” he said. “I actually do have a meeting in five minutes.” He stopped at the end of the hall to add, “But I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk on Saturday, Lane.”
Chapter 10
Perched on the arm of my couch, I frowned down at my phone while waiting for Hailey to reply to my string of texts listing all the reasons why I messed up colossally by not already quitting Victoria’s job. When she didn’t answer in a reasonable time frame—under three minutes—I called her.
“I was about to text you back if you could wait just a freaking second.”
“That’s it!” I declared as if she hadn’t said anything. “I’m just going to call Victoria.”
“Emily—”
“Tell her the truth, have her call off her brother, avoid a whole mess of embarrassment.”
While I spoke, I folded my favorite fleece blanket and tossed it over the back of the couch. Then I stepped back, decided it looked too stiff, unfolded it to a rectangle, and draped it over the armrest. I’d spent way too much time scrubbing the apartment to a this-is-just-a-model-home-nobody-lives-here clean, only to go back and rough it up a smidge to make it look like someone actually lived here—a very tidy someone.
I should have been working on reconfigurations since I’d lost a half-day, meeting with Victoria, but I was dusting the blinds instead.
“He’s already bringing the mirror,” Hailey said calmly as if working with a spooked horse. “Why don’t you just see how this project goes?”
“And if I mess it up?”
“What kind of marker are you using on the mirror?”
Damn it. She had me, and I knew it. I sighed. “Acrylic.”
“I don’t have to tell you that acrylic wipes clean with any old window cleaner.”
“I know. I know! But I was going to quit. That was the plan.”
“You’re right,” she said, in a tone that warned me this conversation was about to take a back road through the ugly parts of town. “That was the plan. But then you let your coworker get you all riled up. And why is that?”
