Maxwell had been flooded with interviews, which caused him to flee the limelight. He only did one interview and then he pretty much became a hermit. London couldn’t find any information about how he affixed the diamonds.
Jared had procured some really good-looking zirconia for the project, but she couldn’t just slap them on and hope they stayed put. And there was no way she had time to figure out how to press them into the glass while it was hot. Even if she could, that would definitely raise some red flags with Ezra.
Her phone buzzed on the couch next to her. The only person who ever called her in the middle of the night was Nikki, so she didn’t even look at the screen before answering. “Hey, babe.”
“Babe, huh?” Ezra’s deep voice rumbled across the line.
She yanked the phone away and saw that there was only a number on the screen. “Uh, hey. Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”
“Someone you call babe.”
“My friend Nikki. She’s the only one who ever calls me in the middle of the night.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
She shifted on the couch and set her laptop on the table. “No disappointment at all.”
“I just wanted to call to make sure you made it home safely.”
“Yep. Streets were pretty clear. No one was out, so it was me and the salt trucks.”
“Glad you got there okay.”
Heavy silence sat between them.
“I had fun tonight,” she finally said. “I’m gonna miss late nights in the studio.”
“You can always come back. Make some other hideous thing.”
She gasped. “Hideous?”
“It’s a red phallic tree topper.”
She fell into laughter. For a guy who didn’t talk much, when he had something to say, he let loose. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“It’s not like you designed it, right?”
“Still. Something tells me that even if I had designed it, you would tell me if it was ugly.”
“I can be honest to a fault. It was how I was raised.”
“Then tell me honestly—why were you so mean to me when we first met?”
“I wasn’t mean. You were with a group of people that Bronte had organized. As you know, I don’t like people in my space.” He took a deep breath. “And then, there you were, with your long hair and inappropriate clothes. Laughing and flirting.”
“Inappropriate clothes?”
“You wore a tank top to play with melted glass.”
He had a point, but... “I wore a flannel over it.”
“After you were eyeing me.”
“Hm. I didn’t think I was that obvious. But in my defense, you were distracting. All those forearms...”
He chuffed. “You make it sound like I’m an alien with ten arms.”
“Mmm...imagine what you could do with ten arms. You were pretty talented with just two.”