“Nope.” I could practically hear the blood pumping through my veins, the force of my heartbeat inside my chest. Our feet pounded on the trail and, no, I definitely wasn’t cold anymore.

“Other than being busy all the time,” he asked, breath not even the slightest bit labored, “do you like the work you’re doing?”

“Love it,” I gasped. “I love working with Liemacki.”

We spoke for a while about my project, the other people in my lab. He knew my graduate advisor from his reputation in the vaccine field, and I was impressed to see that Will kept up with the literature even in a field he said didn’t always perform the best in the venture capital world. But he was curious about more than my job; he wanted to know about my life, asked about it point-blank.

“My life is the lab,” I said, glancing at him to gauge his level of judgment. He barely blinked. There were a few graduate students, and an army of post-docs cranking out papers. “They’re all great,” I explained, swallowing before taking in a huge gulp of air. “But I get along best with two that are both married with kids, so we aren’t exactly going to go hit the pool tables after work.”

“I don’t think the pool tables are still open after you’re done with work anyway,” he teased. “Isn’t that why I’m here? Big-brothering—getting you out of your routine kind of thing?”

“Right,” I said laughing. “And although I was pretty annoyed when Jensen flat-out told me I needed to get a life, he’s not exactly wrong.” I paused, running a few more steps. “I’ve just been so focused on work for so long, and getting over the next hurdle, and then the next one, I haven’t really stopped to enjoy any of it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “That’s not good.”

I tried to ignore the pressure of his gaze, and kept my eyes pinned on the trail in front of us. “Do you ever feel like the people who mean the most aren’t the people you see the most?” When he didn’t respond, I added, “Lately I just feel like I’m not putting my heart where it matters.”

From my peripheral vision I saw him glance away, nodding. It took forever for him to reply, but when he did, he said, “Yeah, I get that.”

A moment later, I looked over at the sound of Will laughing. It was deep, and the sound vibrated through my skin and into my bones.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I followed his gaze to where my arms were crossed over my chest. I winced inwardly before admitting, “My boobs hurt. How do guys do this?”

“Well, for one, we don’t have . . .” He waved vaguely to my chest region.

“But, what about the other stuff? Like, do you run in boxers?” Holy hell, what is wrong with me? Problem number one: no verbal filter.

He looked over at me again, confused, and almost tripped on a fallen branch. “What?”

“Boxers?” I repeated, making the word into three full syllables. “Or do you have things that keep your man parts from—”

He interrupted me with a loud barking laugh that echoed off the trees in the frigid air. “Yeah, no boxers,” he said. “There’d be too much stuff moving around down there.” He winked and then looked forward at the trail, wearing a flirty half-grin.

“You have extra parts?” I teased.

Will threw me an amused look. “If you must know, I wear running shorts. Form-fitted to keep the boys safe.”

“Guess girls are just lucky that way. No stuff down there to just”—I waved my arms around wildly—“flop all over the place. We’re compact down below.”

We reached a flat part of the trail, and slowed to a walk. Will laughed quietly next to me. “I’ve noticed.”

“You are the expert.”

He threw me a skeptical look. “What?”

For a split second my brain attempted to hold back what I was about to say, but it was too late. I’d never been particularly good at censoring my thoughts—a fact my family was more than happy to point out whenever the chance arose—but here it felt like my brain was stealing this rare opportunity to let it all out with the legendary Will, as if I may not get another chance. “The . . . pu**y expert,” I whispered, all but mouthing the P-word.

His eyes widened, his steps faltering a bit.

I stopped, bending to catch my breath. “You said so yourself.”

“When would I ever have said I was the ‘pussy expert’?”

“Don’t you remember telling us that? You said Jensen was good with the saying. You were good with the doing. And then you wiggled your eyebrows.”