Page 16 of You, Only You

I started keeping a mental tally of how many times per hour I looked at him instead of my screen. The number was professionally embarrassing. I stopped counting on day three.

I learned his tells without meaning to, though. The way his brow furrowed when he found a particularly damning connection, a photograph of a smiling politician at a fundraiser for one of Reeves's shell companies, a memo that showed exactlyhow deep the corruption ran. I didn't have a name for the expression he made, but it was the opposite of the cold mask he showed the world. It was hot. Focused. It made the hair on my arms stand up, and I told myself that was concern about the case.

But there were other tells. Softer ones.

His phone would buzz with a specific tone, gentle, almost musical, and no matter how deep in concentration he was, he'd stop. Mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-reach for a document. He'd pull out his phone, and the change was instant. Not dramatic. Just a loosening, like someone had turned a dial from ten to seven. The tension in his shoulders would ease. His expression would soften, just slightly.

"Nicole?" I asked the third time it happened.

He glanced up, something guarded flickering across his face before he nodded. "She's trying to convince me that her basil plant is finally thriving. I have my doubts."

"Photographic evidence?"

"Grainy and unconvincing." But he was almost smiling as he typed his response, and I looked away quickly because watching Will Steele almost smile did something to my chest that I was choosing not to investigate.

On the afternoon of day three, we had our first argument that had nothing to do with the case.

It started because of lo mein.

We'd been ordering takeout from the same Thai place for three days running, which was fine, except Will apparently had opinions about noodle dishes that he'd been suppressing with visible effort, and I'd made the mistake of suggesting we try the Chinese place two blocks over.

"Their hygiene rating is a C," he said, not looking up from his laptop.

"How do you know that?"

"I looked it up."

"You looked up the hygiene rating of a restaurant I mentioned thirty seconds ago?"

"It took five seconds. The information is public." He typed something. "The Thai place is an A."

"The Thai place gives me the same pad see ew every time. I want lo mein. Specifically, I want lo mein from the place with the C rating, because my college roommate and I used to eat there at two in the morning, and it was the best lo mein I've ever had, and I don't care if the kitchen has questionable practices."

He looked up then, and his expression was so genuinely baffled that I almost laughed. Like the concept of choosing food based on sentiment rather than sanitation data was a language he didn't speak.

"You want substandard noodles because of nostalgia."

"I want excellent noodles that happen to come from a place that maybe doesn't mop as often as you'd like."

"Lindsey."

"Will."

We stared at each other across the table, and the absurdity of it hit me all at once: two people investigating a human trafficking ring, surrounded by evidence of monstrous crimes, locked in mortal combat over Chinese food. A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, sharp and unexpected, and his expression shifted from baffled to something else. Something I couldn't read.

"Fine," he said. "Order the lo mein."

"Really?"

"If you get food poisoning, I'm not pausing the investigation."

"Noted. Your compassion is staggering."

"I'll have the kung pao chicken." He turned back to his screen. "Extra spicy."

"You like spicy food?"

"Is that surprising?"