Page 69 of We Met Like This
“Beef?” he asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what that means.”
He smiled that killer smile of his at me again, then whispered, close to my ear, “Don’t pretend anyone still uses that word.” With those words, he left me standing there, the back of my neck prickling to life, as he went to order the coffee he refused to let me buy.
“Oh,” Sloane said as I sat down again. “I see now.”
“What?”
“You two have a lot of chemistry.”
I laughed. “I know. But do we have anything else?”
Her eyebrows popped up. “If you ever want to find out, you have to actually let him in. I know Rob hurt you, made you wary, made you think you only had one thing to offer, but—”
A lump sprung to my throat. “This has nothing to do with Rob.”
She pursed her lips and stopped talking.
Oliver came back to the table a few minutes later carrying an iced coffee with some sort of drizzle—caramel? Brownsugar? He sat down, then let his shoulder bump into mine, as if greeting me again.
I smiled up at him.
“Did you bring a book?” He nodded toward my book at the corner of the table. I had pulled it out earlier when digging through my tote for my wallet.
“It’s her emotional support book,” Sloane said.
I shoved it back into my bag. “Downtime is a real thing.”
“It’s true,” Sloane said. “I carry scripts around. I once read an entire screenplay while stuck in standstill traffic.”
“What do you carry around, Oliver?” I asked.
“The entire internet,” he said, patting his phone in his pocket.
“Boring,” I said with a smirk.
“Speaking of boring,” Sloane said. “Time to brainstorm Margot’s new business venture. Have you thought of a name for your agency yet?”
“Rude transition,” I said.
“I thought it was brilliant.”
“And yes. Ihavethought of a name. Love Lit.” My last name was Hart. It seemed like the perfect fit.
“You’re going to pigeonhole yourself into only representing romance authors?” she asked.
“It’s what I’m passionate about.”
“I saw some pretty insane passion when you were talking about Kari’s thriller/horror the other day.”
“Thriller/horror?” Oliver asked.
“Yes,” I said. “One of my ex-boss’s client’s works in progress. And speaking of, Kari sent me the next fifty pages.” I held up my phone, the notification I’d gotten for the waiting email earlier still up on my screen.
“For someone who rejected you so handily today,” Sloane said, “she sure didn’t waste any time sending those.”
“She didn’t reject me,” I said. “I wasn’t asking her to be my client.”
