A guy from product—Jeremy? Jason? Something with a J? God, why can’t I remember anyone’s names?—has stopped at the edge of our table, grinning broadly at both of us like he hasn’t just accidentally interrupted the possible climax of my emotional life.
Miller sits back too, expression neutral in that infuriating way he has of masking things instantly.
“Yeah,” he says. “We made it.”
The J-name guy launches into some anecdote about the drive, the open bar, and how he lost a bet to someone in QA over whether the groom would actually wear leather bracers to his own wedding.
I smile and nod when appropriate, but my entire body is still humming from that almost-kiss.
Because it was almost a kiss.
Right?
It was.
It had to be.
I know what I saw.
I know what I felt.
When the interloper finally moves along, I risk a look at Miller.
He’s already looking at me.
There’s something unreadable in his expression. Something intent. Something that makes my stomach flip all over again.
Neither of us says anything about what almost happened.
How could we?
What would I even say?
Hey, did you almost kiss me while someone was discussing escaped livestock and table-side butter?
Though, honestly, if that isn’t our vibe, I don’t know what is.
So I do what I always do when feelings become too large and unwieldy to hold comfortably.
I make a joke.
“Well,” I say lightly, “nothing says romance like near-mouth-contact during a goat story.”
For one terrifying heartbeat, he says nothing.
Then his mouth curves.
“Was that what that was?”
I stare at him.
He stares right back.
Completely calm.
Completely unfair.
“You know,” I say, because now I’m committed and death is preferable to retreat, “for someone with such a limited verbal repertoire, you can be extremely difficult.”
