Page 13 of Hired By the Enemy
What is your partner’s least favorite food?
Okay, I’ve got this one sorted. Liam always had a weird grudge against carrots, a fact I exploited when my mother made me invite him to my ninth birthday party, and I requested carrot cake, carrot star bites, carrot sticks, and carrot muffins as my snack food.
And he knows my least favorite food is peanut butter due to my mild nut allergy that makes me break out in hives, something he took full advantage of at every opportunity.
Sure enough, we get that right about each other.
We get our favorite foods correct, too, because I knowLiam’s obsession with almonds, and apparently, he’s clocked my preferences for eating curly fries at any opportunity.
The questions continue, and I begin to relax. Because it turns out that spending years plotting the downfall of someone means you acquire a lot of knowledge about them.
I knew I was an expert in app design. It turns out I am also an expert on Liam Jamieson.
It helps that whoever designed the questions for the quiz obviously believes that knowing your partner well means knowing intimate details from their childhood. I mean, who normally tells their partner the name of their favorite childhood toy?
But Liam knows about my teddy bear, Mr. Gruffles, and I know about his cuddly giraffe called Looney because of the fourth-grade kidnapping and ransom saga that ended with both of us in the principal’s office.
We know each other’s first jobs because how could I forget Liam’s arrogant face charming all the customers from behind the counter at Poppa’s Pizza? It became my favorite Friday night entertainment to walk into Poppa’s just before closing and order the most complicated pizza possible when I knew he was trying to clean up for the night.
He knows all about my mailer delivery run because he once sabotaged my bike, which meant I couldn’t deliver the flyers on time, and as a punishment, his dad had made him deliver all my flyers on foot.
Even the quick-fire round, when we have a choice between two options of our partner’s preferences, is fairly easy.
Somehow, I know he’s a night owl while he knows I’m a morning person. I know he prefers video games while he knows my preference is board games.
We both prefer the beach over the mountains and, somehow, we know that about each other too.
“You said you guys have only been dating for a month. How do you know this stuff about each other?” Henrietta asks curiously as Mindy flashes the scoreboard before the final round that shows Liam and I are tied for first place with Paul and Annette.
Shit. Maybe we’ve done the opposite of what I was concerned about. Maybe we’ve made my employees suspicious because it looks like we’ve studied fact sheets on each other.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking,” I mutter.
“From the moment I met him, it felt like he’d been part of my life forever,” Liam says smoothly at the same time.
I glance at him, and Liam’s hazel eyes lock onto mine. I can’t read the look on his face. And I don’t know what he’s seeing in my expression either. Has it also been bizarre for him to discover exactly how well we know each other?
“Are you ready for the final question?” Mindy asks.
“Bring it on,” Paul says grimly. He’s grown more and more subdued as the quiz has gone on.
“Right, for ultimate bragging rights, here’s the final question.”
It flashes up on the screen.
What do you admire most about your partner, and what do you think your partner admires most about you?
My stomach sinks.
Oh shit. How do I answer that? Can I just put down an N/A answer? Because I don’t think there is anything Liam admires about me.
And I’m supposed to come up with something I admire about Liam?
“Twenty seconds left,” Mindy says, and I realize I’ve just been staring blankly at my board.
I writehis charm. After all, isn’t that what I’ve been admiring about Liam today?
But what do I think he most admires about me? I can’t think of anything Liam would ever admire me for, so I quickly scrawlmy brainat the last moment before Mindy tells us to put our pens down.
