Page 10 of Finding Mr. July

When I look back up, Rachel and Jonathan are both staring at me.

“Let me get this straight,” Rachel says. “You, Holly King, were once involved in the badass Bond-esque pursuits of skiing and archery?”

I nod. “Yup.”

“How did I not know about this?”

“It was before I met you, and I guess it never came up.”

“That’s wild.” She shakes her head before tapping the keys in a frenzy.

“Yeah, that’s neat,” Jonathan concedes, and I admit some small part of me warms at his approval. “Though I fail to see what it has to do with double-oh-seven.”

Rachel pauses her typing. “ The Spy Who Loved Me ? For Your Eyes Only ? Come on—the skiing scenes only cemented Roger Moore as the best Bond.”

Jonathan glances at me, clearly not used to Rachel’s hot takes on popular culture. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago,” I cut in to wrap up the topic. “What have you got so far?”

Rachel consults the monitor. “You are now Holly Saint Bernard—figured that would draw the dog lovers—a fiend on the slopes, frequenter of Greece, connoisseur of sushi.”

“I sincerely hope that’s not how you’ve worded it.”

“I’m paraphrasing, okay? Chill.” She reads us the rest of my profile, and when we don’t have anything else to add, she pauses with the pointer above the PUBLISH button. “Ready to meet your match?” she asks.

Beside me, Jonathan shifts in his seat. For the briefest moment, our eyes meet.

“Ready.”

“Aaaand posted.” Rachel closes her laptop. “Ah! All in a day’s work.”

“And now what?” I ask.

“Now you wait for a bunch of complete strangers to approve or disapprove of you as a human being based on these few superficial traits,” Jonathan says.

Rachel smirks. “Someone knows his way around dating apps.”

“Do not.” He glares at her.

“You already have someone special in your life, then?” she asks.

I kick her under the table. “You don’t have to answer that,” I tell Jonathan. Among the articles I read last night, there were several mentions of a messy divorce on the tail end of the messy career implosion.

“I don’t,” he tells Rachel, ignoring me. “And that’s how I like it. If there’s nothing else, I’d like to get back to my real job, please.” He stands.

“But you’ll be my photographer?” I get up, too. “As soon as we’ve got a few guys lined up, we should scout locations and get started.”

Rachel joins us on our side of the table.

“Yes, all right.” Jonathan rolls his shoulders back, about to say something else, but just then the door opens, and Manny sticks his head in. “Hey, hey.” He enters, eyeing Jonathan. “Checking to see how things are going. Is this one behaving himself?”

Jonathan scowls.

“Rocky start, but we’re cruising now,” Rachel says. “Wrapping up, actually.”

“Great.” He steps closer to Jonathan and hands him a jacket. The missing one. From Friday. “Hey, the cleaning crew found this below the foosball table in the rec room on Saturday. It’s yours, right?”

“It is.” Jonathan does a decent imitation of someone who has no idea how that might have happened, but I don’t miss the miniscule start at the mention of the rec room. He takes the garment and puts it on, shoving his hands into the pockets.

“So, Holly, are you feeling on track?” Manny asks me. “Jon tells me you’re producing a calendar. I think that’s a fantastic idea—if you can get it done in time. Remember you need time to sell the product before the deadline.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I register Jonathan’s hand in his pocket, moving around and grasping something.

“We’ll be done in time,” I tell Manny. “The plan is set in motion. I’m lining up a printer today, so I’m not worried.”

As Rachel launches into her excitement about the project, Jonathan fishes whatever he’s found out of the pocket and looks at it. It’s an earring shaped like a lightning bolt. My earring.

“Well, all three of you are highly competent people,” Manny is saying as Jonathan hands me the piece of jewelry.

It kept getting tangled in my hair, beneath his fingers. Getting in the way of his lips. He’d plucked it out of my ear so gently and tucked it into his pocket “for safekeeping.”

Our fingers graze over the cool silver, sending a jolt up my arm. The exchange is over quickly—Manny is still talking—but my breathing has quickened, and Jonathan’s eyes have gone more vivid. He remembers, too.

I shove the delicate jewelry into my own pocket and ignore the curious flicker of Rachel’s gaze cutting between me and Jonathan. There’s a tiny crease between her brows.

“Keep me posted,” Manny says, nudging my elbow. “I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

I step back from our little circle and clear my throat. “Thanks, I will.”

As Manny leaves, Jonathan calls after him, “I think I’ll join you. Got plans for lunch?”

They both disappear out the door, and I go to grab my things from the table. Rachel remains in her spot.

The silence in the room grows like an avalanche until she finally asks, “What was that?”

I move my tongue to try and remedy its arid state. “What do you mean?”

She starts tucking her laptop into her bag. “Why did Jonathan have your earring in his pocket?”

Crap.

“Um, it was bothering me on Friday. I took it out at the bar, and he offered to keep it for me.” I venture to meet her querying gaze. “No pockets on that dress.”

“What about your bag?”

“Didn’t have one.” I point to my chest. “Credit card. Bra.”

“Keys?”

“In my jacket in the coat check.”

Her eyes narrow, but after another moment passes, she relaxes. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

To my great relief, she’s back to talking about the fundraiser as we head down the hallway to the elevators. On Tuesdays, there’s a taco lunch special across the street. “Did I tell you Eric is looking to book the Chihuly Glass Museum for his green party?”

I pause my stride. “Wow. That’s…”

“Ambitious? Ballsy? Wildly expensive?”

“I was going to say ‘hard to compete with.’”

Rachel presses the elevator button. “I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure it’s booked up months if not years.”

“What about Letitia and Ashley? Have you heard anything more about their projects?”

“No.” As if sensing my upped anxiety, she taps my foot with hers. “You’re the one with the award-winning photographer on your team, remember. I can’t believe that slipped my mind.”

“Yes, that was impressive,” I agree. “Or concerning.”

We both smile, but then silence engulfs us again, lingering until we step onto the elevator.

Rachel presses the button but then cocks her head as if analyzing the lit-up LL. “Sorry, just so I’m clear. You said Jonathan had your earring because it was bothering you at the bar on Friday and you had no place to put it?”

I suck in a breath. “Mm-hmm.”

We pass the third floor, the second.

The profile of her forehead is set in concentration. “But his jacket wasn’t at the bar. It was in the rec room,” she says quietly. “Left in the rec room Friday night…”

A second later, her eyes jolt to mine, the spinning wheels behind them stopping with a clank. She reaches out a fist and pounds the emergency stop button. We thump to a halt.

“You and Jonathan were both up here Friday night,” she says, triumph in her voice. “You didn’t leave the bar to work. You came upstairs to…” She gasps. “You had sex, didn’t you?”

“No!” I try to reach the button behind her, but she won’t let me. What irony that I was in a similar position yesterday with Jonathan. “I would never!”

“Then what?” She raises her chin.

“Then nothing. I could have been in the office working while he was in the rec room without running into him.”

“Except, now that I think about it, you both disappeared from the bar at the same time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “We have security cameras, and I happen to know that the guy who runs them really likes muffins.”

Damn, I didn’t think about the cameras.

Rachel’s curly hair frames her like a halo. She won’t back down. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Did you, or did you not, tap that fine Summers ass Friday night?”

“Charming.” I shuffle my feet while scanning the shiny walls of the tiny space as if there’s a secret portal somewhere.

“Holly…” Rachel says, the warning clear in her voice. “Don’t make me bake muffins. You know I’m unreliable near ovens.”

I huff out the air in my lungs until my mind goes blank. I know when I’m beat.