He mulls it over. “I’m not sure. For my team, I would usually hire internally. But I’m almost certain I still have my application materials on my old laptop. I could send them to you.”

Okay. Perfect. Great.

The opening I was waiting for.

My heart rate picks up. Warmth twists in my lower stomach. I lean forward with a smile, feeling like I’m finally in my element. This, this, is what I know best. Depending on how busy I am with school, or work, or binge-watching K-dramas, I do this about once a week. Which amounts to quite a bit of practice. “Maybe I could come to your place?” I say, finding the sweet spot between comically suggestive and Let’s get together to play Cards Against Humanity. “And you could show me?”

“I meant—in Houston. My laptop’s in Houston.”

“So you didn’t bring your 2010 laptop to Pasadena?”

He smiles. “Knew I’d forgotten something.”

“Sure did.” I meet his eyes squarely. Lean half an inch closer. “Then maybe I can still come to your place, and we could do something else?”

He gives me a half-puzzled look. “Do what?”

I press my lips together. Okay. Maybe I overestimated my flirting skills. Have I, though? I don’t think so. “Really?” I ask, amused. “Am I that bad at it?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.” Ian’s expression is all arrested confusion, like I just suddenly started talking in an Australian accent. “Bad at what?”

“At hitting on you, Ian.”

I can pinpoint the precise, exact moment the meaning of my words sinks into the language part of his brain. He blinks a few times. Then his big body goes still in a tight, impossible, vibrating way, like his internal software is buffering through an unpredictable set of updates.

He looks absolutely, almost charmingly mystified, and something occurs to me: I’ve struck up flirtatious conversations with dozens of guys and girls at parties, bars, laundromats, gyms, bookstores, seminars, muddy obstacle courses, greenhouses—even, on one memorable occasion, in the waiting room of a Planned Parenthood—and . . . no one has ever been this clueless. No one. So maybe he was just pretending not to get it. Maybe he was hoping I’d back off.

Shit.

“I’m sorry.” I straighten and roll my chair back, giving him a few inches of space. “I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“No. No, I—” He’s finally rebooting. Shaking his head. “No, you aren’t, I’m just—”

“A bit freaked out?” I smile reassuringly, trying to signal that it’s okay. I can take a no. I’m a big girl. “It’s fine. Let’s forget I said anything. But do email me your application package once you’re back home, please. I promise I won’t reply with unsolicited nudes.”

“No, it’s not that . . .” He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. His cheekbones look rosier than before. His lips move, trying to form words for a few seconds, until he settles on: “It’s just . . . unexpected.”