Page 78 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

I’ve worked with Odette a handful of times since I started and she’s excellent at her job. Twenty-eight, French, the kind of efficient that makes you feel behind just standing near her, never a hair out of place. Professional in the way of someone who decided early that competence was the armor that fit her best and has worn it so long it’s become natural.

She is currently, unmistakably, flustered.

Raphael walked in twenty minutes ago with his equipment case and a coffee and said “Bon matin” to the room, which is about the extent of his French, and Odette’s clipboard shifted from her left hand to her right and back again in the span of about four seconds. She recovered immediately and has been perfectly professional since but I clocked it and I have been quietly charmed by it ever since.

She likes him.

She likes him and she’s been trying very hard not to show it and Raphael, bless him, is completely oblivious, moving around the great hall with the easy energy of a man who has no idea he has this effect and is just here to do his job and probably make everyone in the room laugh at least once.

It is so cute I could die.

We’re halfway through the setup review when I look at the playlist Odette has drafted from the estate’s standard rotation and feel something professionally itch.

“This is good,” I say. “But I think we’re missing something.”

Odette looks at the list. “The client approved this selection.”

“The client approved it as a baseline. For Rosé’s launch, I want something that feels like an event rather than a dinner party. Something people will still be talking about the next day.” I look at Raph, who is perched on the edge of one of the hall’s long tables with his coffee. “What if we do a live band and DJ combination?”

Odette frowns at her clipboard. “A combination? How would that work? They would have to take turns, non?”

“Not if the DJ is good enough to work with them in real time.” I nod at Raphael. “Raph has a very talented ear. Think of it like live remixes. The band plays, he layers and shapes it, the whole thing becomes something you can’t hear anywhere else.”

Odette looks uncertain. “It’s a little difficult to visualize.”

I smile. “Trust me.” I turn to Raph. “Show us what you’ve got.”

Raphael sets down his coffee. He looks at me with the specific expression of a man who has been given permission to do exactly what he was hoping to be asked to do. “How can I turn down the chance at peacocking,” he says, and pushes off the table.

His skeleton setup is already in the corner of the hall where he staged it when he arrived. He crosses to it, plugs in his phone, pulls his headphones up around his neck. He selects something, nods once to himself, and then puts the headphones on fully.

The room is quiet. He hasn’t set up the output yet so we can’t hear anything he’s playing, but he’s at the board now, head moving slightly, hands moving over the equipment with the practiced ease of someone who has been doing this since before it was a career for him. There’s something absorbing about watching it, the way his whole focus narrows down, the version of Raphael that isn’t performing for anyone because he’s just in the work.

Odette is also watching him.

She is watching him in the specific way of a woman who has given herself thirty seconds to just watch before she remembers she’s supposed to be professional about it.

I lean slightly toward her.

“So does he know?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

She startles. “Does he know what?”

“That you like him.”

She draws herself up. “I don’t know what you— of course I don’t⁠—”

“Odette. I have been on this estate for how long? Today is the first time I have ever seen you switch your clipboard between hands.”

The blush that crosses her face is quick and betraying. She clears her throat and looks at her paperwork with enormous focus. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Fine,” I say pleasantly. “Don’t tell me.”

A pause. She keeps looking at her clipboard.

“Fine, yes,” she says, very quietly. “But it’s nothing. It’s completely nothing.” She glances over at Raph, who still has his headphones on and is nowhere near this conversation. “And anyway he obviously…” She clears her throat again. “He was clearly interested in you when you first arrived. You two were always together.”

I blink. “Raph and I are friends.”