“Hailey or my stuff?”

I didn’t want to grin, but I did. “Your stuff.”

“And Hailey?” He squeezed behind me, pushing his desk chair (and me) forward an inch or so.

“Errands.”

“What errands?” He hunched down and thumbed through the stack of papers I’d set on the floor.

“I didn’t ask. How was the concert?” I was pretty proud of myself for slipping that in like it was no big deal.

“I said fine.”

“No. You said your date was fine. I asked about the concert.”

“It was fine too.”

“You’re such a guy.” I rolled my eyes and sneaked a quick peek at him over my shoulder.

“Well, yes, last I checked, I was a guy.” Pulling out a manila folder, he stood.

“Hailey thought your date was an orthodontist.”

“She thought right.”

I felt six inches tall sitting in his desk chair while discussing his date … that date who had him all night.

“How was Bible study? Did you go out for ice cream?”

“It was fine.” I covered my face with one hand and sighed. “It was … well, I didn’t go.”

Fisher chuckled and rested his butt on the edge of his desk, opening the folder. “Did you just try to lie? Are you incapable of lying?”

“No. Trust me. I can lie just fine. I just don’t like to do it.”

“Then why lie about last night. Why try to lie about it?”

“Because I don’t want you to think that I didn’t go because of my hand. I just didn’t feel like it. That’s all.”

“Hey, you don’t owe me an explanation.”

I continued alphabetizing invoices while he remained leaning against the desk, close to me. So close I could smell his woodsy soap mixing with the coffee he set on the desk next to him. “So … you must have been up early this morning. Since you uh … texted me to drive myself. Were you meeting with the plumber?”

“No.”

No? NO?

That was it. One word. No additional details. No explanation as to why he asked me to drive myself to work.

“You never sent me the photos from our trip into the mountains.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Without taking his attention away from the contents of the folder, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it before handing it to me. “Go for it.”

I had Fisher’s phone. It felt oddly personal like I had his whole world in the palm of my hand.

Contacts.

Text messages.

Photos.

Apps—which could tell me a lot about a person.

I behaved despite my mind whirling with a million possibilities. Opening his photos app, I quickly found the ones he took of me and us because they were the most recent. My gaze flitted from his phone screen to him several times to see if he was paying any attention to me.

He wasn’t.