Page 14 of My Favorite Mistake

5

Frenchmen Street, New Orleans

The elephant in the room was gargantuan. Andthatwas an understatement.

Liza sat at her desk after setting up the label’s new email and scheduling system, and Connor sat compliantly in a chair across from her while he waited for her to finish.

“Um.” She nervously cut her eyes toward him, but he was just staring at his lap. “Can I see your phone for a second? Just to set this stuff up for—”

He handed it over without a word. As she took it from him, her fingers brushed his, and she nearly dropped it.

Liza cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

Connor said nothing.

As she tapped through the process of activating the email client, Liza couldn’t help picturing the confrontational moment when she and Connor would deal with the aforementioned elephant, and how ugly that might be. Her stomach turned and,damn her, there was a pang in her chest that caused the rims of her eyes to burn. She managed to pull herself together and finished setting up the new email app.

“There you go,” she said, opting to set the phone on the desk in front of Connor this time. “It should work, but let me know if you have any problems with it.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, picking up the phone and standing just as the front door swung open.

An attractive, lanky, dark-haired man in his forties casually strolled inside, and Connor glanced up at him as he pocketed his phone. “Hey, Scott.”

“Still good to go grab lunch?” Scott asked, meandering toward Jimmy’s desk and peering at one stack of papers.

“Yep.” Connor pointed haphazardly at Liza. “Also, this is Liza. Jimmy just brought her on as our new marketing guy.”

Scott chuckled as he approached Liza. “Marketingguy, huh?” He offered his hand as Liza stood up to shake with him.

Liza laughed congenially. “Yes, that would be me.”

“Good to meet you. I’m Scott Latimer. I’m a local music reporter for the Times Picayune, and I’ve been working with Jimmy for about fifteen years or so.” He shoved one hand in his pocket and slapped Connor’s back with the other. “And I’ve been Connor’s neighbor for about ten.” Scott looked at Connor with an easy smile. “We’re all just one big happy family, right, Connor?”

Connor merely stared at the floor with his arms crossed over his hulking chest, which caused his large biceps to stretch the sleeves of his black t-shirt. His physique certainly wasn’t any worse for wear over the years. “Yep.”

He’d been so closed off all day that it wasimpossiblethat he hadn’t figured out who she was. Nerves gripped her stomach again, but she managed to smile pleasantly at Scott.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Mr. Latimer.” She stepped away and returned to her desk. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Yep.” He pointed at her. “And it’s just Scott.”

She nodded and pointed back at him. “Right.”

Scott turned to Connor again. “Ready?”

“Yep.” Connor looked up to skim his gaze across the far end of the house. “Riley!”

Brennan’s voice carried from somewhere in the back. “Yeah, Sarge!”

“You coming to lunch with me and Scott?”

“Yeah, text me where, and I’ll meet you.”

Lunch plans were being made, and the idea of enduring a lunch chock-full of this awkwardness made Liza that much more nervous, so she made a big show of getting back to work. Although, she couldn’t deny that sometinypart of her wished that Connor would invite her, and that they could have a long overdue conversation, and that they could find some semblance of peace with each other.

But that wasn’t in the cards. She already knew it. It was so broken that there was no slicking a pretty coat of paint over all the cracked, splintered pieces of the beautiful thing it had once been.

The pang in her chest radiated again, and Liza steeled herself as she turned to her laptop and found something to immediately drown her attention in. Scott and Connor made their way out engrossed in conversation about a new artist and fortunately didn’t set her up for the awkwardness of declining a lunch invitation. Lunch hadn’t yet occurred to her, which was just as well because she had no appetite with all the nerves and melancholy coursing through her system.

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