Page 24 of Newly Tied

Scanning the people, I saw Lang and Malik, their dates, and three more men.

“Huh,” Talia said under her breath.

I was just as confused.

Once we were close, Lang stood up and pointed at the two seats near him at the end of the long table. I pulled out the one next to him for Talia, and she thanked me as she sat down. I then took the one across from her, next to a man in a royal-blue velvet suit.

“Everyone, this is my sister, Talia, and my partner, Del.”

“Partner?” the man on the other side of Blue Velvet Suit asked, leaning forward so he could see me.

“My work partner,” Lang clarified. “We’re both deputy US marshals.”

“You’re a marshal?” the woman beside Lang asked, who had to be his date. “I thought you were an attorney like Malik.”

“We didn’t have a lot of time to talk at the gallery,” he said, glancing at me and then back to her. “But yeah, I’m in law enforcement.”

“No white collar here,” I told her, then looked at Talia. “What’re we now? You told me, but I forgot.”

“Gray collar,” she answered. “All first responders, teachers, people like that.”

“I like bein’ included with teachers.”

“Who wouldn’t?” she concurred, then looked down the table. “And now, since we missed the introductions, everyone please tell us who you all are and what do you do?”

Everyone laughed and smiled because she was charming and beautiful, and her smile, much like her brother’s, lit up her face.

Blue Velvet Suit’s name was Ashton, next to him sat Garvey, and next to Garvey was Bing. I didn’t listen to the information after their names because frankly, when was I ever going to see any of these people again? They had all ended up at the gallery because of Bing. A client of his had a show that opened at the Logan and Bailey gallery downtown that evening. When he’d seen two of his closest friends across the street, he’d insisted that they, along with their dates—Lang and Malik—accompany his group to the gallery. It was nice, but to me, they should have declined. They were on a date, after all.

Malik, whom I knew and met on a number of occasions, was across from Bing, then his date, Cheryl, and next to her was Lang’s date.

“I’m Nicolette,” the stunning woman introduced herself, smiling at me. “I’m an interior designer at Weitzman King.”

The way she said it, like I should have known what that was, would have probably made me look bad, but thank God for Talia.

“Your company redid our lobby at Sutter,” Talia gushed, “and it’s gorgeous.”

“Thank you so much. That was my project.”

“Fantastic. Chef’s kiss on that.”

Nicolette beamed. “What do you do at Sutter?”

“What is Sutter?” Garvey asked her.

“Only the biggest real estate developer in Chicago and God knows where else all over the world,” Nicolette answered like he was an idiot.

“Oh, Sutter as in Aaron Sutter, the billionaire.”

“That’s the one,” Nicolette said, and then her gaze returned to Talia.

“I’m in acquisitions,” Talia responded, “and if you do any staging at all, I would love to talk to you about a building we recently bought that has commercial space we need to sell.”

Lang stood up then, and Talia and Nicolette both laughed as he and Talia switched places. He immediately moved his chair to the head of the table so he could be closer to me. It was a thing he did. Wherever we were, he always moved either my chair or his. In meetings, everyone knew they needed to leave a seat open next to me or he’d make an entire row stand up and move down. He wasn’t playing around.

Looking at him, at the furrowed brows and how fidgety he was, I figured out what the problem was fairly quickly.

“You haven’t eaten since lunch,” I said, grinning at him.