Grateful for the change of subject, I cleared the thickness from my throat. “Yeah. He and my mom are both archeologists. When I was little, I used to travel all over with them.”

“Must have been fun.” He sat down on the sofa next to me.

“It was. Most of the time.”

“Only most of the time?” He shifted to face me, the movement causing his thigh to rub against mine. Making me acutely aware of just how close he was sitting. It stirred a feeling in my stomach that was somewhere between incredibly uncomfortable and kinda excited. I tried to shrug it off.

“Well, it was cool being the only kid in third grade who’d been in an actual Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. But the traveling meant I didn’t exactly have an ordinary childhood.”

He cocked his head, his eyes assessing.

It was kind of unnerving, and I felt myself fighting the urge to fidget. I took another sip of wine.

Finally he said, “An ordinary childhood would have bored the shit out of you.”

I laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He gave the picture one more glance before reaching across me to set it back on the end table…and I felt his arm brush against my chest. I bit the inside of my cheek against the not-completely-unpleasant feeling. How sad was it that was the most action I’d gotten in months?

“Tell me more,” he prompted, completely unaware of my body’s alarms going off beside him. He leaned casually back into the sofa cushions.

“Uh, more?” I cleared my throat, my voice suddenly husky. Jesus, who was I, Lauren Bacall? It was an accidental touch. I needed to get a grip.

“About your childhood. You spent time in Egypt. Where else?”

“Oh. Um…well, there were the catacombs in France. That was a fun summer. Then the year we spent in Peru excavating Incan ruins.”

“Your parents had eclectic tastes.”

“They’re both forensic anthropologists. They specialize in figuring out how people died. Everywhere you find ruins, there are dead people.”

“Kind of morbid.”

I shook my head. “Not at all. It was fascinating. Learning about how they lived, how they worked, how they died. It was all connected. It was like a private glimpse into their lives.”

“Hence your fascination with other people’s lives.”

I grinned. “I guess I’ve always been interested in gossip, huh?”

“What about your life?” Cal asked, cocking his head at me.

“What about it?”

“There don’t seem to be any photos past the age of pigtails. For all your fascination with other people’s lives, I don’t see evidence of much of a life of your own.”

“Ouch.”

He grinned. “I didn’t mean it that way. What do you like to do?”

“Work, I guess.”

“What do you do on the weekends?”