Page 43 of Cherry Picking

“Boyfriend?” Grant asks, his expression tilting with perception. When I look up, startled, he nods toward my hand. “The phone.”

“Work,” I lie.

“Demanding boss, then?”

“Extremely. He’s elderly, opinionated, and has a penchant for firing people via Post-it notes stuck to their windshields.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.”

“He’s the best man I’ve met all year.”

Grant grins, and we drift deeper into the party. Somewhere across the room, Hazel unleashes her genuine laugh—the loud, ungraceful honk that’s been her signature since middle school, audible from any corner of the apartment.

The sound makes my own smile widen.

“Tell me, Counselor,” I say, “was the law always the goal, or were you just a kid who liked to win a fight?”

“A bit of both. I was an exceptionally irritating child.” He admits it with a careless shrug. “You ever have the pleasure of giving a deposition?”

“I’ve managed to avoid that specific circle of hell so far.”

“A few weeks back, I sat through forty-five minutes of opposing counsel trying to argue that my client’s Jet Ski possessed ‘emotional significance.’”

I scrunch my nose. “How do you even quantify that?”

“Apparently, he wept for three hours when it hit the lake floor. Or so the testimony goes.”

“That’s a hell of a bond to form with a machine.”

“It was a thirty-thousand-dollar bond.”

“Let me guess—was he drinking when the ship went down?”

“Does a Vegas summer inevitably try to kill you?”

Briggs would have a field day with that one. No one hates this town more than he does.

I set the thought down as gently as possible.

“You went somewhere just now,” Grant says, watching me closely.

I offer a small, performative smile. “I’m right here.”

He tilts his head. “I’ve had the feeling for the last twenty minutes that I’m having a wonderful time and you’re just doing an impression of someone who is.”

“I’m just spacey,” I murmur. “You’re a catch, Grant. Genuinely.”

He huffs a laugh, finishes his drink, and has the grace not to push. It’s the most attractive thing he’s done all night.

“Tell you what.” He pulls a pen from a pocket and grabs one of the ingredient cards. “I’ll give you my number. Hazel’s got a birthday in March, so our orbits will cross again. You might feel like using it by then.”

I take the card without offering the truth, which is that I already know I won’t.

Hazel is by the window when I find her, flushed and glittering, holding court over a cluster of strangers.

“Met your friend Grant,” I say. “He asked if I was a murderer.”

“Grant’s cute,” she says, singsongy and ignoring my tone. “Grant’s available. Grant bills six hundred an hour and owns his own—”