Page 46 of My Favorite Mistake

Connor carried the cup out to the front office area as casually as if he were a barista and delivering café au lait was simply part of his job. He set it on Liza’s desk, where she sat looking at the note and mints with a soft smile on her face.

She glanced up at him as he turned to leave, and he offered a casual and pleasant, “Morning.”

“Connor,” she said with a smile in her voice.

He paused and turned back around. “Liza.”

She gestured at the coffee and mints, still smiling. “What’s all this?”

He pointed at both items. “Those are peppermints. That is café au lait with one and a half pink sugars.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” A tiny, quiet laugh shook out of her. “You’re making me wonder if you did something terrible.”

The smile faded from his face. “Well, I mean…”

Saying anything in response to that was a can of worms he didn’t need to open, so he simply offered a nod and started out of the room.

“Connor.”

He paused and glanced up at her.

“Thank you. You made my day, and it’s not even 8:30 yet.”

“Good.” He gave a quick smile that belied the fullness that permeated his chest. “Got a lot on the docket today.”

Connor touched two fingers to the side of his forehead in a small salute and then strode out of the room. Before he slipped out the front door to tackle the first item on said docket, he caught a glimpse of Liza gazing at him with slightly parted lips and a subtle bloom of color on her cheeks; an expression he’d seen on her face long ago. Way back in the beginning. The first look they’d shared across a crowded restaurant in Austin before Connor tore himself away from Morales and Patel to go introduce himself.

Long before he’d ruined everything.

It was a memory Connor didn’t think of often for a lot of reasons, but it was one that felt appropriate right then, when he was hopelessly attempting to create a new beginning of a different nature for them.

11

Frenchmen Street, New Orleans

The creaky old house that was home to Frenchmen Street Records sounded like a Mardi Gras parade in a jar. Liza sat at her desk stacking the handouts for a meeting that was scheduled for ten minutes ago. She peeked around the corner, attempting to catch a glimpse of Oscar recording but knowing the double layer of doors at the end of the hall would prevent it. She reminded herself that musicians lived on their own version of island time, that you couldn’t confine the creative process to a schedule, and that in New Orleans that low-and-slow pace was lower and slower still.

The music abruptly increased in decibel level before hastily retreating again, as someone emerged from the studio, and Liza adjusted her posture. She tugged at the front of her blouse so that it revealed the tiniest bit of her nearly non-existent cleavage while remaining tasteful, swept her hair over one shoulder, and perched on the edge of her chair in a manner that accentuated the arch of her back. She focused her attention on her laptop screen and mindlessly scrolled.

“Hey, L,” Brennan said as he hooked the corner and approached her desk.

Liza slumped back into her casual posture and tossed her hair out of the way. “Hi, B.”

She tugged her blouse to reverse her previous adjustment. After all, it wasn’t Brennan’s attention she was trying to pique.

Truthfully, it wasn’t Connor’s attention sheshouldbe trying to pique either, and yet there she was: showing up every day in her most provocative work attire in hopes ofshe didn’t even know what.

She was clearly a glutton for punishment.

“So,” Brennan said, crossing around to her side of the desk and leaning casually against it, all the while wearing a sly smile, “do I give you shit now, or do I give you shit later?”

Liza pursed her lips and blinked slowly, knowing exactly what he was referring to. She waved her hand. “Go ahead. I know you’ve been itching to all day.”

He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen, and tilted it toward her so that she could plainly see the result of her accidental swipe on a dating app the evening before.

Liza had only signed up for the app a couple of months ago, had not used it much, andtruthfully, had opened it to see if Connorwas on there. That would indicate he was dating or at leastlooking todate, which wasn’t any of her business, and yet she just couldn’t stop herself from being curious about it.

Connor wasn’t on the dating app. ButBrennanwas. And in Liza’s startled haste to get hisabsurdly attractiveface off her screen, she swiped in the wrong direction.

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