Page 59 of How Sweet It Is

She nods, meeting my gaze. “Yes.”

My mind reels with this new information. Her bodyguard left. Does that mean she’s safe now? I lean closer and whisper, “You’re no longer in danger?”

She stiffens. “I never said I was in danger.”

“It was implied by the big beefy guy who was watching you.”

Her gaze bounces around the crowded bar. “I can’t talk about it.”

I lift my hands in surrender. “Fine. I get it. I pushed too hard. New topic. Do you know what you’re going to wear to the wedding?”

She nods. “I do.”

“A skirt suit?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “No. Why? What’s wrong with what I wear to work?”

I shrug. “Nothing. It’s just…” I can’t think of a nice way to end that sentence, so in self-preservation, I let my words trail off.

“Just what?” she asks, bristling.

I chuckle. “Nothing, Spreadsheet. Your clothes fit you perfectly. I’m just looking forward to what you might be wearing at my brother’s wedding, that’s all.”

She gives me a smug smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it.”

I grin at her, trying and failing not to imagine what she’d look like in a little black dress. “You sure know how to torture me.”

We go back to silence, and I take a moment to study her. “I like your eyes. They’re dark, like they hold secrets, yet there’s a spark to them.”

She scoffs. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

I stare at her. “Why is it hard for you to accept a compliment?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m fiercely independent.”

“Why is that?”

She cracks open another peanut before putting the shells in her pile on the table. “I guess I had to be growing up.”

I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. The silence gets to me. I toss a shell on the floor as a silent challenge and lean back. “You know, I hated school. Like,visceralhatred.”

She tilts her head. “Really? I figured you were one of those charming slackers who coasted through.”

“Nah. I mean, I tried to be. But when you try and still get it wrong, the charm doesn’t save you.”

Her gaze sharpens just a little. “What do you mean?”

I exhale through my nose. “Fifth grade. Miss Halpern. We were supposed to write a story. Everyone turned theirs in, and she held mine up to the class like it was a specimen. Told everyone this was whatnotto do. Wrong punctuation. Run-on sentences. She even read a part out loud in this fake-dumb voice. Everyone laughed.”

Amelia’s eyes go soft.

“That was the day I learned jokes were a better shield than silence. If I could get people to laughwithme before they laughedatme, it stung less.”

She doesn’t say anything right away but just nods, slow and thoughtful.

“I’ve always felt like I’m ten steps behind everyone else. School didn’t make sense to me. I’d stare at the page, knowing I was supposed to understand, and just... nothing. Like my brain was a locked door and someone forgot to give me the key.”

I look at her, expecting pity, maybe a well-meaning “you’re not dumb,” but she surprises me.

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