Page 27 of Smoke and Glitter

Sam looks over at me.

"You're protective of her."

"She's my client." I take the sponsor list from his hand and turn back to the laptop before he can point out the difference. He isn't wrong.

"Nix has been working since she was fourteen. There are a lot of people around her who are very interested in what she can do for them."

Sam takes a drink.

"So what does she want?"

The question stops my hand over the keyboard.

"Keep the tour. Stop apologizing for being nineteen. Have one person in the room care about the difference."

Sam nods once, like that settles something for him.

"Can you get her that?"

"I can try."

"Good."

That's it.

No argument. No second opinion. He stretches one leg out beside mine and stays there while I go back to work.

A little while later he gets up. I hear him moving around the kitchen while I'm rewriting the same paragraph for what has to be the eighth time.

"What are you doing?"

I look over my shoulder. "I'm almost done."

"Didn't ask."

The smell of toasted bread reaches me a few minutes later.

Sam comes back with cheese toast and makes room for the plate beside my laptop.

"You're bossy."

"Eat."

I do, because arguing takes more energy than I have left and because the cheese toast is hot and I'm starving.

Sam doesn't mention that.

He sits beside me until Anna finally agrees to send the revised language without another committee call. When her last message comes through telling me to sleep, I close the laptop and push it onto the coffee table.

Sam has moved to the couch. I climb up beside him and stretch my legs across his lap, and he catches one ankle while his thumb presses into the arch of my foot.

For a while, neither of us talks.

Then Sam asks, "Is she going to be okay?"

I know he means Nix.

"Eventually."