Page 67 of Drunk on Love

“This sounds like a standardized-test problem.” Luke rubbed his hands together. “I loved those.”

Everyone in the room turned and stared at him.

“What?” he said. “I was a real dork in high school. I think we’ve established that?”

Taylor and Marisol burst out laughing, and Luke grinned at them. Margot felt a stab of jealousy at the way they all laughed together, at their casual ease with one another, at this inside joke she wasn’t a part of.

Oh no. She wasn’t jealous of Taylor and Marisol because she thought there was anything going on with either of them andLuke—she was jealous because they got to talk to him all day, they got to hear his stories, they got to know him better. That time in the car hadn’t been enough for her. She wanted more.

She cleared her throat.

“Well, then, it seems like I’ve come to the right place,” she said. “Any ideas?”

Luke looked at the board for a moment and then turned to her.

“Do you have any index cards? We need index cards.”

Index cards. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

“You’re brilliant.”

Margot grabbed a pack of index cards from her supply closet and tossed them to Taylor, who wrote all of the options down and put them up on the corkboard.

“Tacos should go second,” Marisol said. “You don’t want them first—you want everyone smelling them for a while and getting hungry, especially those people who planned to just stop in for a minute on their way to somewhere else. Then they’ll stay, and eat tacos, and taste more wine. And buy more wine.”

“Okay, but where does that put the wood-fired pizza?” Luke asked.

They debated and argued about the food for the next ten minutes, as Margot moved the cards around. And then, finally...

“I think we have a lineup,” she said, with a smile at the corkboard and another at her staff. “Everyone happy with it?”

They all nodded, satisfied smiles on their faces.

“Good job, team,” Margot said. “Thanks for your help, I never would have managed that without you. Now, everybody, go home, it’s late.”

They all grinned at her as they left her office.

“That was fun,” Marisol said.

“Agreed,” Luke said. “Let’s do that again. The next time you need to work on the conspiracy wall. We’re here for you, Margot.”

He turned and met her eyes just before walking out of her office.

“Brilliant, huh?” he said under his breath.

She had said that to him, hadn’t she?

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she said, trying not to smile.

He didn’t even try.

“Oh, don’t worry. It already has.”

THE NEXT MONDAY MORNING,Luke left home earlier than usual so he could drop by his mom’s place with flowers for her birthday on his way to work.

Craig had texted him again today. They’d texted a few times over the past week—just about what was going on with him, how Craig was doing, stuff like that. It was sort of weird, to get reminders of his old job. He hadn’t been gone for even two months, but it felt like forever. Especially after working at the winery, which felt so different from his old job.Hefelt so different about it. Like, he was eager to get to work, every single day. It almost felt... too easy? Too good?

Of course, he knew part of the reason he was eager to get to work every day was Margot. He’d worried that things with her would be awkward after their car-ride confessions on Sunday, that she’d be stiff and uncomfortable with him, like on his first day at work. He’d been embarrassed that he’d told her how he felt about quitting his old job—he was still embarrassed about that. Would she be self-conscious about talking to him like she had? But on Monday, she’d smiled at him like she was happy tosee him, and he’d smiled back in the same way, because he sure as hell was happy to see her. And then she’d called him brilliant in her office that day. Ever since, things had been easy between them. Friendly. Good.

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