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Maybe I should just make my excuses and—
“Come on.” Mindy grabs my elbow. “Let’s get you some wine!”
Luke winks at us as his fiancée drags me to the kitchen, where she proceeds to pour me an entire vat of wine.
“How’re you enjoying working with Lukey and Liam?” Mindy is still bouncing like a jack-in-the-box as she throws open the fridge and cupboards, firing plates and bowls and boxes of food onto the counter at an alarming rate.
Her energy is chaotic and carefree. I dig it.
“Luke’s a fun boss.” I offer Mindy a careful smile. She may be barefoot and have a wine stain on her shirt, but she’s still the boss’s wife. Or, soon-to-be wife.
“I bet,” she says cheerfully, still banging around. “He used to work at a marketing firm downtown but left to join Stay Inside the Lines when it started growing so fast.”
I lean against the counter and cross my arms. “So, Liam started the company alone?”
“Mmmhmm.” Mindy dumps a box of ravioli onto a plate and pops it in the microwave. “Workaholic, that one. And not much of a people person…” She shoots me a cheeky look. ”As I’m sure you’ve learned by now. Luke came onboard to manage the staff, handle the everyday running of things.”
“That checks out.” I swirl my glass of wine and look at the mini whirlpool I’ve created.
“Nature versus nurture is an odd thing,” Mindy continues her kitchen tirade. “Luke, Liam and Lana all went through the same thing, but they all responded to what happened so differently.”
“What happened?” I ask, then realize how nosy that sounded. “Sorry, I mean—I probably shouldn’t… umm, you know—”
“They had a bit of a rough go of it.” Mindy, bless her heart, has the kindness to interrupt my dithering ramble for the ages.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I respond sincerely.
Mindy suddenly stops all of her zooming around and points a fork at me. Rather accusingly. “You like him, too.”
I swirl my glass a bit too hard, splashing cabernet on the floor tiles. “Oh! Let me get a cloth.”
I busy myself at the sink, wetting a dishcloth and then scrubbing the spill. I keep my head down so Mindy can’t see my reddening cheeks.
“What do you mean ‘too’?” I ask, oh-so-casually, as I stand back up, rinse the cloth and wring it out. Easy-breezy, nothing to see here. I’m the poster child for casualness.
In reality, though, I don’t know which part’s tripping me up more: her calling me out on liking Liam—which I obviously don’t—or her insinuation that he likes me ‘too’—which he obviously doesn't.
The conclusion is, well, obvious:Mindy is blind.
“Can’t you see it?” Mindy widens her eyes. Pauses. “Well, I guess not because you’ve just met Liam. But I’ve known him for a while, and he’s never, ever invited anyone home for dinner.”
“Luke invited me,” I correct.
Mindy waves a dismissive hand, then tops up my wine. Right to the brim. “Luke may have invited you, but Liam let it happen.”
“How do you mean?” My voice goes up half an octave.Great job keeping casual, Annie. Not.
“Liam might let Luke do most of the talking, but he always puts his foot down when he’s set on something. Believe me, if he didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.”
I blink at Mindy, once again lost for words.
I sense a pattern forming—Liam surprises the hell out of me, and I respond by losing my handle on my native tongue entirely.
Seriously, there have been too many revelations today. My head may fall off, it’s so heavy with new information.
I want to ask approximately nine hundred and forty five thousand more questions, but do not want to be accused for the second time in five minutes of liking my boss inappropriately.
Because that’s what liking him would be. Inappropriate.
