‘Who?’ I managed through a mouth full of food – too full, obviously, which was evident when a crumb shot out and landed on Cam’s shirt.
He glanced down at it, flicked it off and then looked back up at me and smiled. Slow and meaningful, almost as if . . .
‘Huh?’ I stopped chewing and stared at him. His smile seemed to be growing exponentially. ‘Me?’ I pointed at myself with a finger smeared with tomato sauce.
His smile widened even further.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. ‘Remember what I said aboutcompliments getting you nowhere.’ I bit into my toast, dismissing his previous nonsense. ‘So basically, everything we need to know about Amber is on social media. She seems to broadcast constantly.’
‘Post,’ Cam said. ‘Youposton social media.’ He shot me a teasing smile.
‘Post, broadcast, beam . . . whatever,’ I said, my mouth still full of toast.
Cam burst out laughing, a little too loudly, and I looked around the restaurant. We were supposed to be blending in, not standing out with raucous laughter.
‘Always withStar Trekon the brain,’ he said.
‘Oh please, I don’t always haveStar Trekon the brain.’
‘I don’t blame you. I lovedVoyager.’
‘Don’t lie.’ I stopped chewing and glared at him. When Cam had found out I ran aStar Trekfan club, I hadn’t heard the end of it. It was one of his favourite things to tease me about. He’d caught me wearing myStar TrekT-shirt once and I’d never lived it down.
‘I get why you like it so much now . . . maintaining moral integrity, standing by your principles. Ethics, right and wrong. The Prime Directive.’
I eyed him suspiciously; he was clearly employing a new tactic now. A chameleon strategy, the same strategy we were about to adopt with Amber and Victor. Mimic someone’s interests or moral values and it made them lower their guard. Pretend to be on their wavelength to make you more attractive to them. Well, I was going to put an end to it.
‘Returning to our original conversation,’ I said pointedly. ‘Like I said, the womanpostseverything.’ I emphasised the correct terminology.
‘You sound . . . judgemental.’
‘I’m just saying that Amber’s the kind of person who would probably do a Facebook Live at her own funeral if she could.’
‘No one uses Facebook any more, haven’t you heard?’
‘Apparently not.’ I stabbed some more sausage and put it in my mouth.
‘You still eat exactly the same,’ Cam said, and went back to his strange nibbling.
‘So do you,’ I pointed out. He smiled at me over the edge of his toast, a slow, leisurely smile that reached all the way to his gorgeous eyes and made them . . .No, no, no, Lizzy!Unwittingly my lips began to twitch. What the hell? I looked down at my plate again, trying to shield my traitorous mouth. I cleared my throat and stabbed some more food. ‘As I said, everything we need to know about Amber is on social media, which means all our work has been done for us.’
‘Sofinallysocial media is good for something,’ Cam said, and popped the last piece of round toast into his mouth.
‘What do you mean,finally?’ I asked, after he seemed to infuse that word with a lot of meaning and emphasis.
He hesitated for half a second. ‘I mean . . . I may or may not have tried to find your social media. Only to realise that Lizzy Brown is clearly way too cool for social media.’
‘Youstalkedme?’
‘Stalkedhas such negative connotations. More like I took a curious look.’
I snorted, slicing into the next yolk and dragging my toast through it. ‘So youcurious-lookedme on social media?’
‘Only once . . . well, maybe twice. Worst-case scenario four times.’
‘Four times?’
‘Max! Max!’ he said defensively.
