“Oh c’mon, Karl can keep us warm with his bushy beard.” I gesture to the air.

I pick a seat near the front and he plops down next to me, sitting close enough that our shoulders press together. The only other people brave enough to withstand the chill are an elderly couple from the tour group, but they sit near the middle, huddling with each other and giggling, holding hands.

It makes me grin.

Alex glances around and then hunches down, pressing closer to me. “This is not a warm beard, it’s like a frozen cold beard.”

“It’s not that bad,” I insist. Then the bus lurches into motion and the frigid wind whips around us. “Okay, maybe it is.”

He laughs and, after a slight hesitation, wraps an arm around my shoulders. “We should share warmth.”

“I’m not complaining.” I snuggle in closer.

His brows lift in surprise, mouth popping open. “Um. Do you want to talk about what happened this morning?”

“Not really.” I shrug. “Not because I’m upset or anything. I’m not.”

“I can see that.”

“I guess I’m not upset because I never really fit in there anyway.”

“That’s not true. You were great on my team. We worked so well together.”

I hesitate, watching him. “We did, but then you had me moved from your team.”

He blows out a breath. “Speaking of that, I wanted to talk to you about—”

“Alex, no. Let me save you some time. I know why you did it and I understand. It’s fine. I get it. There was an imbalance of power and you were right to set me aside. It wasn’t fair to either of us to start something if we worked together and with you being a client. You were protecting me. But after that . . .” I shake my head. “Well, so we’re on the same page about everything, Mark and I were never together. He just said that because he’s . . . he has some issues.”

He stares, mouth agape.

I laugh at his dumbstruck expression. “Let’s not talk about any of that now. Let’s talk about something else.” I’ve already had this conversation hundreds of times.

He shakes his head, still processing my avalanche of words and then he swallows. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Have you ever been fired from a job?”

He chuckles. “Actually, I have.”

I widen my eyes. “Tell me everything.”

“I was working in an ice cream store.”

“What? Where was this? And when? I need details.”

“I was in high school. It was my first job. I didn’t show up one day and,” he makes a slashing motion across his neck, “fired.”

“Why did you miss work?”

“Um.” He scratches his chin. “It’s not something I share often, but I had some medical issues when I was a kid.”