He straightened. “Excuse me?”

“A utensil. What would you be?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, then asked suspiciously, “Why do you want to know?”

“It’s for a quiz. It’s guaranteed to let us know if we are compatible. You know, for the long haul.”

“Really?” he asked. He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled it to sit with us. “You have to take a quiz to see if we’re compatible?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to recover from that last move. He was just too sexy, straddling that chair, crossing his sinewy arms over the back of it. “Yes. This stuff is important, and they have a ninety-nine percent success rate. It said so.” I dragged out my phone, brought up the online quiz, and held it out to him. “Right here. See?”

He didn’t even spare it a glance. Cookie was busy cutting into her Santa Fe chicken and fending off an inappropriate smirk.

“You can’t trust anything on the Internet.”

“Can, too,” I said, completely offended.

“So, if I posted a comment saying I was an Arabian prince from Milwaukee?”

“Yeah, but you’re a big fat liar. You don’t count. I mean, look at your dad. Pathological liar numeral uno. Lying is in your genes.”

He leaned forward. “There’s only one thing in my jeans right now.”

“Are you going to take my question seriously or not? This could be the key to our futures.”

“I have a key in my jeans pocket. You could search.”

He was completely blowing off our chance at happiness. “What are you, twelve?”

“Centuries, maybe.”

“You’re twelve centuries old?”

He winced. “You know how older women say they are twenty-nine?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m kind of doing that.”

“No, really, how old are you? Wait!” A thought hit me. Hard. Like a baseball thrown from the pitcher’s plate at Wrigley Field. “How old am I?” I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms. I was supposedly from an ancient race of beings from another universe, another plane of existence. How old was I?

“A machete,” he said, getting up and righting the chair.

“What?”

“If I were a utensil.”

“Does that count as a utensil?”

He winked at me. “It does in my world.”

“Okay, fine. I’d be a … a spork! Wait, what does that mean? I’m not sure a machete and a spork are very compatible.”

He took hold of my chin and lifted my face to his. “I have a feeling a machete and a spork can work very well together.”

Before I could argue, he bent and pressed his mouth to mine. The heat scorched at first, then penetrated my skin and spread through me like warm honey. The kiss, barely a peck, ended too soon as he rose, surprised Cookie with a quick kiss on her cheek, and went back to the kitchen, giving me a spectacular view of his ass.

Cookie gasped and touched the spot where Reyes’s lips had brushed, stars bursting from her eyes. “I want that,” she said, suddenly determined.

I looked back toward the door Reyes had disappeared through. “Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine.”

“No, not that. Not him.” She shook out of her stupor and said, “I mean, yeah, I’d take him in a heartbeat, but I want that. I want what you two have, damn it.” She set her jaw. “Let’s do this. Let’s set up that stubborn, rascally uncle of yours until he begs me to be his girl.”

“Yeah, Cookie,” I said, raising my hand for a high five, but she floundered. “Don’t leave me hangin’.”

“But what if he doesn’t ask me out?”

After waving toward a couple I didn’t know who’d just stepped in the front door to save my dignity, I lowered my hand and said, “I think the more important question is, do you think a machete and a spork are very compatible?”

“Charley, you have to quit taking those ridiculous quizzes.”

“No way. I have to know.”

“Fine, but why a spork?”

“Because I’m versatile. I can multitask like nobody’s business. And I like the way it sounds. It’s so … sporky.”

3

Coffee doesn’t ask silly questions.

Coffee understands.

—BUMPER STICKER

We weren’t back in the office ten minutes before the door to the front entrance opened. I’d expected Mr. Joyce, the agitated man with the issues. Instead I got Denise. My evil stepmother. Thankfully, Mr. Joyce was right behind her. He afforded me the perfect excuse not to talk to her.

Her pallor had a grayish tint to it, and her eyes were lined with the bright red only the shedding of tears could evoke. I honestly didn’t know she had the ability to cry.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“I have a client.” I pointed to the man behind her to emphasize that fact.

Giving her chin a determined upward thrust, she said, “You’ve had clients for two weeks now. I just need a minute.” When I started to argue again, she pleaded with me. “Please, Charlotte.”

Mr. Joyce was holding a baseball cap, wringing it in his hands. He seemed to be growing more agitated by the second. “I really need to talk to you, Ms. Davidson.”

“See?” I pinned Denise with a chastising scowl. “Client.”