Page 22 of Love is an Open Book
Pulling at my collar, I say, “Not that kind of a date.” True, at least. “I’m just hanging out with—” A kick to my shin cuts me off short. Not hard but strong enough to make me realize mentioning Mia would raise all sorts of questions.
“Are you making up excuses because you’re still mad we put you in right field last game?” Joe asks.
“That wasn’t cool,” I say, momentarily distracted. “I’m the best fielder that team has and you know it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Mia’s death glare and cut the argument short. “Give me a call next time you need an extra player and I’ll prove it.”
“Okay, but I expect to hear all about your date when I see you next.”
“Not a date.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Then I want to hear about this woman you’re keeping things casual with,” he says. “Don’t make me have Sera ask Mia. You know she’ll get it out of her.”
Shit. That would ruin everything. “Sera has enough on her mind.” She’s been putting in a lot of hours in preparation for taking time off when the baby comes.
“Exactly. She needs a distraction from the stress of getting ready for the little one. She’d jump at the chance.”
The threat fills me with dread. I finally manage to get him off the phone with promises to explain at the Brewers baseball game this weekend. I’m nervous to see what Mia will say, but she just shakes her head.
“See? That’s why a date was a bad idea,” she says. “Pretending to be a couple would get us in trouble.” She must not have heard Joe’s threat to get Sera involved, or she wouldn’t be so chill. “Hence, the binder.” She hoists it up with ata-dasmile, and I can’t help but grin back.
“Are you sure trope tests will be any better?” I thought Mia was exaggerating the risks, but after that phone call, I see her point. I’ve never had to hide anything from Joe, but if it’s a question of telling him the truth or protecting Mia, there’s no contest.
“Yes, because the situations aren’t inherently romantic.” She scrunches up her nose. “Not all of them at least. Anyway, we have rules. We won’t be acting like a couple out in public, or fooling our friends and family.”
Mia and her rules. “And if you change your mind, you’ll tell me.” I’m not asking, but she answers anyway.
“Always.”
I blow out a shaky breath. “So we’re doing it. Until you’re ready to call it quits.”
“Or you are.” She issues it like a challenge, but if she thinks I’m scared of intimacy with her, she’s very much mistaken.
The appetizers arrive and we both dig in like we’re grateful for the chance to not talk for a moment. Once the food has hitmy bloodstream, I hail a passing server. “Excuse me. Do you have a pen we could borrow?”
With a skeptical glance between me and Mia—dressed up, with emptied wineglasses—and the binder, he shrugs and hands me one from his apron. Uncapping it, I flip to the list of tropes. “You’re the expert. What trope should we start with?”
“I was thinking workplace romance.”
“You want to come spend a day with me at Hill and Dale?” That actually sounds fun, and I’m sure the owners would go along with it. “We could tell Faye that you’re shadowing me for book research.”
“Ha, no. It’s supposed to be ninety degrees this week.” Mia’s preferred summer involves moving from air-conditioning to the pool, not working in the hot sun, which is why I know she must’ve been at her wit’s end to help me pull up paving stones. “I was thinking you could bring your landscaping design work to my place,” she says.
“You write when I’m around a lot. How would this be any different?” I point to the trope definition and read aloud. “‘Concern that a breakup would make the workplace awkward.’ You work alone, so if we metaphorically broke up, no harm done.”
She jumps in. “At the core, an office romance is simply about characters who work together falling in love.”
“Which we aren’t going to do.” I raise my brows, daring her to object, and when she doesn’t, my heart falls, even though I should know better by now. “So I think we need to raise the stakes a little.” She was adamant that a romantic evening wouldn’t change how we saw each other. How is working side by side in her home office any different?
“Can we at least try it my way first?” There’s a note of desperation in her voice and I get the feeling that even though she seemed confident about the plan, she doesn’t trust it enough to let go.
But she’s supposed to be getting some distance from her work and this would be the exact opposite. I glance down at the page, looking for a way to change her mind.
I read the next bullet point: “‘Possibility for coworkers to discover the relationship.’ No coworkers at your condo, unless you count Frank.” The plant I gave her the night we met not only survived but has grown to towering proportions. She often jokes Frank’s size is the reason she chose a loft. “And let’s face it, he wouldn’t take his chaperoning duties seriously because he knows you’d never fall for me.”
“Give yourself some credit,” she says, index finger tracing a slow circle around the rim of her wineglass. “You think it’s never crossed my mind since we made that pact?”
Maybe it’s the wine on a mostly empty stomach, but I can’t let that slip by. “That’s news to me.” When? And why didn’t she make a move?
“There’s one thing all my exes have in common,” she says, in what feels like a total change of subject. But her next words make it clear. “We’re not in each other’s lives at all.”
