Page 21 of In Love and War

Zackary Evans

Designs take three days to come back on a rush order

Amelia Bloom

I sent the request on Monday afternoon and received the last one an hour ago

Three dotted lines appeared at the bottom of the chat, indicating that he was typing, then they disappeared. A few seconds later they were back…

Zackary Evans

Thanks

I blinked at the screen.Was that it? And did he just thank me?

Zackary Evans

My office first thing tomorrow. We’ll go over everything else that needs to be done before we fly out

9

The list of things that needed to be completed wasn’t small. Zac had only scratched the surface with my original task list. So either he had more confidence in me now and trusted me with the additional workload, or he knew he needed the help.

Either way, we had both been working fourteen-hour days for the last week, weekend included. It was Thursday night and we were so close. It was the final stretch, and we were on track to have everything done by early afternoon tomorrow. Which was exactly what I told myself when I looked at my watch and saw it was already past 7:00 p.m.

I’d been working primarily out of Zac’s office off my laptop since Monday. It was just easier this way with how much we had to communicate. But it had also led to a new game of seeing who gave up first.

My stomach growled as I lifted my arms and stretched them out.

“Hungry?” Zac asked, still typing.

I hated to admit it, but the guy was an absolute machine. I hadn’t seen him lose focus once since we sat down that morning.

“It’s fine.” I refused to be the first to cave. Again.

“Do you like tacos?” His eyes were still locked on his computer, his fingers moving rapidly and uninterrupted.

“Who doesn’t?”

He nodded in apparent agreement. “There’s a really great Mexican place near here that delivers. I’ll put in an order.” His hands were finally off his keyboard as he took out his phone.

“No, honestly it’s fine.”

“We’re going to have to eat sometime, Amelia.”

The food was a very welcomed interruption twenty minutes later.

“Mmm, this was a great call,” I admitted before biting into my second taco.

Normally I wouldn’t have given him the credit, but hunger does things to your brain. I was starving, and he was right—they were phenomenal.

“Best tacos in the city.”

“How is this place so good and a five-minute walk from here and I’ve never heard of it? Is it new?” It was really weird that it had never popped up on my radar. Kai and I took pride in knowing all of the good places to eat in the city thanks to years and years of hunting.

“Definitely not new.” He gave a small chuckle. “I’ve been going there since I was a kid. It’s kind of a hole-in-the-wall, really easy to walk past it without knowing. And the owner is old-school, so they don’t have a big online presence.”

“So then how did you hear about it? Your parents take you?” It occurred to me that this was probably the first normal conversation we’d ever had.