His exaggerated huff tells me I only succeeded a little bit. When I get a good look at him and see his wide smile and tanned face, I figure there’s few things that would truly annoy him right now.
“Come to the kitchen with me, they’re just nerding out over some of the books Ru has here.”
Equal amounts of dread and hope fill me.
“They?” I ask, and I don’t manage to keep the emotions out of my voice. That’s more than apparent when Nate turns back to look at me with a confused raised brow.
“Yeah, Ru and Noah.” He shrugs and keeps walking like he didn’t just ruin my plans for a normal evening—an evening where I act like a human who knows how to interact with other humans.
Noah’s been on my mind for days on end.
Not only because of the possibility of signing him on as my agent, and though that shames me just a little bit, no one but me knows, so who really cares?
There’s no reason why anyone should know how much I wanted to take his hand and tell his awful boss off.
Or how much I wanted to kiss him goodbye.
I haven’t had much time to research the ghostwriters or read the samples Noah sent my way, so there’s been no rational reason for me to contact him beyond an email where I promised to do so as soon as I had more of an idea of what I want to do.
So I’ve been reduced to pining in the very few free minutes I have every day.
Between one investment falling through and another one having gotten into a few problems with their supply chain, I really haven’t had the time for anything else.
That doesn’t mean I don’t offer Noah an apologetic smile when he and Ru enter the dining room.
“Nice to see you again,” I start, and hate that I have to offer him a hand to shake. It seems so... banal.
“You too,” he says, and doesn’t look or sound like he’s bothered by my extended silence at all.
“Work has been insane,” I explain anyway. “I promise I’m still trying to look into all the ghostwriters to move everything along.”
He waves a hand carelessly.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be ready when you are.”
“Ghostwriter?” Ru asks, turning to me. “So, you will be writing that autobiography?”
“Looks like it.” I do my best not to sound put off by it, but the idea still doesn’t sit perfectly with me.
I have no idea why, though.
“Talk about it when we’re all sitting and eating, please,” Nate says with an air of impatience, as he carries a big platter to the table.
We all dutifully move back and then help bring the rest of the dishes over.
“Okay, now you can talk about it,” Nate says, with an air of arrogance he always manages to pull off as endearing instead of assholish.
“I think Noah’s best to explain it, actually.”
It not only gets me out of talking about something I’m unsure about, but also has the added benefit that I get to hear Noah’s excited and confident explanation.
Soon enough, though, he changes the subject to the happy couple’s honeymoon.
“It was amazing,” Nate gushes. “Ru finally got to be a tourist in Sydney and Melbourne since he couldn’t when we met, and then I took him to all my old haunts back home.”
“It was... enlightening,” Ru says. His extra wide eyes betray his seriousness, but Nate still swats at his shoulder playfully.
“I made it up to you by making Spain the last stop.” He turns to us then. “We went to this vineyard we like, Gran Amor. We’ve gone before, but it was still amazing and we got to have a lot more alone time.”