Page 40 of The Overtime Persuasive

Her eyes travel to the unfinished boxes, then drift to another pile of books sitting in a corner waiting to be stocked, before they come back to rest on me.

“Two full evenings?”

Yes. I fight the urge to pump my fist in the air like a sixteen-year-old who just passed driver’s ed. “And I’ll bring dinner.”

“Will it be a decent meal?”

“I’m offended you have to ask.” I’m also excited, but she doesn’t need to know that. “However, I will let you pick out where we get dinner from. I buy, and I fly.”

She studies me for another second before the smile finally wins. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Liam. I’ll be your plus-one.” She laughs, sliding a sheet of labels my way. “Now, please get these on more boxes and I’ll prep our next group.”

“Good,” I say, taking the labels and biting my lip so I won’t keep smiling like a fool. As I press one down onto a box, I sneak a look her way only to find her smiling to herself.

I think I did that.

“Hey,” she says after a moment of quiet. “One favor, though.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t make me regret saying yes.”

“Oh? Don’t make me regret asking you.”

She looks up. “We both know I’ll give you street cred.”

“This is true.”

There’s a restless twitching beneath my skin as I let it sink in that I finally managed to ask Eva Barlow out on a date. Apparently, all it takes to turn years of quiet pining into action is taking Tripp Mercer, adding a dash of a backward cap, and one sprinkling of an entirely unnecessary hug.

Tripp hasn’t made me want her. I’ve had that problem for years. Years. I think he’s just spurred me into action finally.

I press down another label and groan inwardly. Fine. Credit where credit’s due, Tripp, but Friday night, Eva is going out with me.

For the first time.

Now, I have to make sure it isn’t the last.

CHAPTER 10

EVA

If you knew that there was a twenty-minute window in the early morning, when the light came through your apartment windows perfectly, making everything look warmer, softer, and approximately forty percent more expensive…

Wouldn’t you use it?

Of course you would, and well, today, I’m using it to photograph a subscription box for a contest I am absolutely not entering. This is all happening because I’m feeling creative. Playing. Messin’ around.

“Mitch.” Shaking my head, I put my phone down for the tenth time in as many minutes. This guy. You’d think he gets no attention. “Move your furry face.”

Things Mitch doesn’t do: move his furry face. Mitch instead stares directly into my phone’s camera, green eyes sparkling back at me, looking enormous, with his little bitty nose out of focus. Behind him is the perfect Bookstagrammer vibe: a white bookshelf that is packed with stacks of my favorite books, an old record player next to a pile of old records from the 70s and 80s, and of course some candles are lit and flickering.