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Nine
Graham cleared his throat loudly and the people two tables over shot him a glare.
I wanted to sink into my seat and hide forever. It wasn’t so much the embarrassment factor as it was the cloud of tension that had been growing since Graham showed up this morning. The sun had just started to peek through that gray haze, and now the warmth was gone again.
“This just became mission critical,” Graham said.
“Agreed.” Oz clipped off the word.
The one thing they consistently agreed on was helping me. It was a starting point. “Graham said it would take a few weeks. This isn’t something you can force.”
“We can make some things happen faster. This is going to take more than an hour or two of coffee to plan though.” Graham reached for the check.
Oz grabbed it first. “If you don’t mind the drive, I have a good setup for that at my place. We can sit on the deck and get some sunshine.”
I loved that idea. Oz’s yard ran into the mountains and it was gorgeous up there. Besides, there was barely room for two of us in my place, and what I’d seen of Graham’s, it wasn’t much bigger. “Okay.”
“Jeremy Ranch?” Graham raised an eyebrow. “I guess it’s not as far away as some things.”
How did he know— Because despite telling me he wasn’t interested, he’d looked into Oz. I would’ve if our roles had been reversed.
Oz didn’t look impressed. “Does that mean you don’t need my address?”
“You’d probably better write it down so I have it.” Graham slid his notepad to Oz.
We had our leftovers boxed to go, and Oz paid the bill, despite another protest from Graham.
Oz took me by my place again, to grab my laptop. The computer was a Christmas gift from Hunter, and was spec’ed out perfectly for the kind of coding I did. The nicest things I owned were from Violet and her guys, and I was forbidden from protesting because they were gifts. I loved the consideration behind them.
I jumped in the shower for the fastest rinse off in history, tugged on a yellow sundress that was perfect for summer mountain weather, and I was in Oz’s truck again in under five minutes.
He leaned in and dragged his nose up my neck, both tickling and enticing. “You smell like Luna again.”
“I assume that’s a good thing.”
“For now. We’ll have to change that later when work is done.”
Chibi Luna whimpered in my head, and it was possible my own tiny squeak slipped out.
Oz stole a kiss that was far hotter than it should’ve been considering it lasted half a second, and we were on our way to his place again.
As much as I wanted to sink into the simplicity of his hand on my thigh and the gorgeous drive up the mountains, the morning had raised a lot of questions, and as many were for Oz as Graham.
“Who’s Dorothy?” My question popped out on its own, without any fanfare.
Oz glanced at me. “Ah.”
That wasn’t an answer. It didn’t even mean anything. “Why did you shut Graham down when he mentioned Judith? Why are you really doing this—”
“Luna—”
“Do not give me the tl;dr versions of anything. I need context.”
“Hmm.” Oz downshifted as we hit the first steep grade up of our trip. “When we worked for Cord, when it was still young—when—we were, Scott and Zach went out of their way to bring in young, undiscovered talent. Most of us had never worked anywhere but McDonalds or bagging groceries. We certainly had no idea what a real corporate environment was like. And we were living our dreams.”
I had no idea what this had to do with my questions, but I’d asked for context, so I was willing to wait through more talking than I usually heard from Oz in a full day. Plus, I enjoyed the sound of his voice and devoured any story I could about back in the day.
“Judith is Dorothy. I’m Oz, I used to call her Judy, it’s—”
