“So anyway, back to my original question…” Dean looks at me expectantly. When I stare blankly back, he rolls his eyes. “Waters? How does he feel about the Darcy account?”

“He’s happy for me, I guess?” Despite his repeated comments about quitting my job, he did want to celebrate me getting to present, so that has to be good.

“Really? Huh.” Dean raises his perfectly groomed villain eyebrows and opens the door to the café, ushering Charlene and me in ahead of him.

I accept his chivalry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dean blinks innocently. “Nothing.”

We get in line, and I look to Charlene, who’s doing a terrible job of ignoring me while she reads the menu. She points enthusiastically at the special. “Oh, look! They have mushroom quiche!”

I wrinkle my nose. “Mushrooms are disgusting. They remind me of severed dick heads.”

Dean makes a gagging sound. “You need a therapist, Violet.”

“People who eat mushrooms need therapists,” I shoot back.

“Shh!” Charlene warns.

I roll my eyes; it’s a noisy café. “No one cares about my aversion to phallus-shaped fungus.”

A tiny old lady in front of us turns to glare. I guess her hearing aids are working fine. I smile at her until she looks away, and then address Charlene. “So I don’t get it. What’s the deal with the Darcy account? I mean, aside from everyone being pissed that I might get it even though I don’t have any real experience dealing with massive amounts of money, other than Buck’s.”

She and Dean exchange another look.

I throw up my hands. “Seriously, you two, if you’re trying to be incognito about this crap you’re failing. What’s the damn deal?”

Dean tries to smirk, but it looks more like a weird facial tic. “I’m guessing you haven’t heard the rumors.”

“What rumors?” Sometimes Dean is worse with gossip than a thirteen-year-old girl. Occasionally his style is also reminiscent of that particular age group.

“They’re swingers.”

I blink at him. It’s loud in here. Maybe I heard him wrong. “Pardon?”

“Swingers.” He says it slowly, making it two distinct syllables—like I’m an idiot, which admittedly, sometimes I am. But he’s being a jerk, and not in a funny way. More of an intentionally antagonistic way.

“I’m assuming you don’t mean they have a trapeze-artist fetish or something.”

“Nope.”

“So, like, they sleep with other people’s significant others?” Who the hell does that in this decade?

“That’s the rumor.”

“Well, where did the rumor come from? And how do you know it’s even true? I mean, let’s be logical. People used to think Alex was a manwhore who slept with three chicks in one night, and we all know that’s not true.”

“We don’t really know, though, do we? He just told you it didn’t happen, and you believe him,” Dean points out.

“He refuted the evidence, and the people who were with him that night corroborated it,” I reply.

“And all of those people happen to be his people. Like his sister.” Dean has the villain eyebrow going again. “Of course she’s going to defend his position.”

“His position?” I snort, even though my stomach is doing horrible somersaulty things. “This isn’t a criminal court case. And Sunny can’t lie. She’s worse than me. Have you ever seen her try to lie? It’s ridiculous. Alex did not bone three chicks in one night. End of story.”

“If you say so.” Dean’s smirking again.

“Why are you being like this today?”

“I’m just making a point. Usually there’s some truth in rumors. Waters may not have banged loads of bunnies, but he sure stuck his tongue in a lot of their mouths. Who knows if he did it with his dick, too.”

“Dean!” Charlene hisses, slapping his arm.

“What?” He looks around.

People are staring, and for once, I’m not the cause of the embarrassment. But I’m sure feeling the effects. I’m sure my face is blotchy. I look at the floor and let my hair shield my face from all the curious eyeballs.

Thankfully it’s our turn in line. I step up to the counter and order a BLT and a drink, then move aside. I don’t say anything else while we’re in the café, and Dean’s busy on his phone, doing whatever he does when he’s not being an asshole to me, apparently.

Once we have our food, we return to the office. I’m not interested in hearing more about the Darcys’ swinger habits, Dean’s thoughts on Alex’s sexual history, or a potential pre-nup.

“I really need to get back to work. That took a lot longer than I expected.” It’s not a total lie. Getting food took all of the twenty minutes I’d allotted to lunch.

Charlene seems conflicted. “Come sit with us for five minutes before you go back to work.”

“I can’t. I have too much to do. It’s cool. I’ll catch up with you later. We have the game tonight, anyway. If I don’t want to bring a file folder full of work, I need to get back to it.”

“Oh, that’s right, you two get great seats, don’t you? Must be nice to have all those connections.” Dean takes a break from his texting, or messaging, or snapchatting to join our conversation again.