Page 70 of The Apparent Trap

“Of course I’m in tomorrow.” What a weird thing to call about.

“Well between Sweden and your days off, it’s been a while!”

“You can live without me for a week,” I point out.

“Apparently not!” she chuckles. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it! Sweet dreams, lovey!” With that, she hangs up.

And if I wasn’t so damned tired from overthinking everything in my life right now, maybe I would’ve thought to spend a little more time examining why she was calling.

I tinker around the office in the morning, avoiding being on set until it’s almost 9:00 a.m. and I need to brief Carmen on the top-of-the-hour topics.

Maybe I arrive a little early and see Lee getting ready for his segment. His is the last one before the 9:00 a.m. anchors take over. So I couldn’t have avoided him completely anyway.

I have to admit that even I don’t buy that excuse.

At first I watch him without him noticing me. He always leans. He leans on counters or against pilings or even sometimes just against a wall. It’s like being that tall makes him want to get on people’s level—today he’s leaning on the set table because he’s around Georgia’s coanchor Darren, who is, frankly, a lot shorter than he’d like to be. He’s got all the charisma but not the height, and I wonder if Lee senses it.

He and Lee are joking around, that easy bro-ey chemistry two men on television seem to always have. Darren’s in a suit, but Lee never seems to care for that convention—he’s wearing a gray t-shirt that looks so soft I want to sink into it. His apron hangs low on his hips. An apron shouldn’t look that good tied around a person.

I think I’m hiding enough and that the studio lights are bright enough to block everything out, but I can see the moment his eyes flick to mine and he spots me. My stomach bottoms out at the way his entire expression changes. He goes from cool, jovial cucumber to a small smile of contentment.

He drinks me in so clearly I find myself looking down to see what I’m wearing—an oversize cardigan, nothing that should make a man look at me like I’m dinner—but when I look back up, his eyes are gone, back on Darren, who’s started talking, although he is standing up straighter. When Darren turns to him and asks about the recipe, Lee responds with a gravel in his voice I’m not used to, and it makes me unable to even pay attention to what he’s saying. He’s like a sexy version of one of the adults in Charlie Brown, words unimportant but his presence impossible to completely tune out.

I try to read the notes I’ve printed out while I wait for his segment to end so I can go talk to Carmen.

I glance up occasionally, and every time, I see that he’s looking past the camera and at me. I’m in his line of sight, yet I’m to the side enough where I know it’s on purpose. I should walk away and come back when I actually need to be on set for Carmen. But I can’t stop watching him watching me while still somehow carrying his own, demoing whatever he’s making.

It’s only halfway through that I realize he’s making a “BLT wedge salad.”

“You can’t eat a BLT every day,” I hear him say, and a smidgeon of delight crosses his expression when he catches the immediate fury on my face. He’s such a goddamned professional, his smirk is barely visible. But I see it.

I should walk away. He’s the one who has all the very good reasons. He’s the one stopping us from doing something stupid.

And yet clearly he also can’t stop himself from whatever this is. I don’t know whether I hate it or love it.

So I watch. I watch the entire damn segment. And I’m annoyed by how much I really do want to try that stupid salad.

When it’s over, I look through my notes again before seeing Carmen walking over to the anchor desk. I’m about to head over, too, when someone walks in front of my path and blocks me.

I look up and sigh. “Did you like my salad?” Lee asks, amusement hiding behind his placid expression.

I can’t think straight when he’s standing in front of me. “Why are you lurking?”

“I’m actually running out,” he says, looking at the door. “But I just wanted to say hello.”

“So stepping right in front of me is the answer?”

He leans in until his mouth is close to my ear. “I’m still trying to respect your no-touching rule.”

The words send a shiver across my whole body. All the memories of our not touching in Sweden are flooding me.

“I promise, the food producers and I agreed on the salad idea before Sweden,” he continues, “so I wanted to tell you that before I left. So you wouldn’t think . . .” He pauses, like he’s not sure what I’m thinking. “Well, I didn’t want you to think I was trying to confuse you again.”

I just nod, my mind still too far in the gutter to come up with a response. His eyebrows knit together, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead he nods back and walks out of the studio.