Page 90 of Smoke and Glitter

"What?"

"Nothing. I haven't seen you in a while. I'm allowed to look at you."

"That sounds threatening."

"You look good, Hayes. Tired, but good."

This time I let him have it.

"Work's good too," I tell him. "The account is doing better than anyone expected. Nix went off-script in an interview and gave a better answer than the one we'd spent hours building for her."

"How'd you take that?"

"I was proud of her." I move my fork through the crumbs on my plate. "She stopped looking at me before she answered. She's a quick study."

"Sounds familiar."

I smile. "She's something else. Nothing like I expected."

Jake finishes his drink and sets the glass down. "You sound happy."

I look at him.

"I am." It takes me a second to realize I didn't qualify it. Jake doesn't either.

He reaches toward my plate, thinks better of it when I pull it closer to myself, and leans back in his chair.

"Can I ask you something about Sam?"

There's enough of a shift in his voice that I know this isn't casual.

"You're going to anyway."

"Probably." He rubs his thumb along the side of his glass. "Before the night you overheard him, did you ever actually tell him you wanted more?"

I don't answer right away.

Jake knows me well enough not to rush me.

"Not exactly."

His eyebrows lift.

"No," I finally say. "I never sat him down and told him I wanted a relationship."

"Why?"

I drag a chip through the ketchup without eating it. "Because by then it felt like I shouldn't have had to. We were together constantly. My things had their own space at his place. He knew how I took my coffee, knew when I was lying about being tired, knew when something at work was bothering me before I'd even told him what happened. Everybody at Vibes knew about us." I look up at Jake. "At some point I thought he should be able to see it too."

"See what?"

"That it wasn't casual anymore."

Jake considers that. "For you."

The correction irritates me because it's fair.

"Yes. For me."