I must have told them about the conference at least three times, but I made myself explain again without snapping, though my gut twisted unpleasantly. “It’s the conference Jeremy and I are presenting at in the fall. It’s one of the annual archaeology conferences? We were really lucky to get a space to talk about our fieldwork—usually people just present papers or workshops.”

Dad grunted. “And what if you don’t find anything? Then what are you going to talk about?”

“Dad. I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay.”

“Are you? You know what I learned when I was researching Professor Anderson? That whenever people write about him, they also write about a Dr. Henry Ceile.”

My shoulders slumped. Great.

Like Jeremy, Dr. Ceile studied pre-historic Ireland, but he was of the opinion that focusing on Greek and Roman ancient sources was ridiculous and useless. He also had a personal bone to pick with Jeremy, since Jeremy had received funding to look for Ivernis that had originally gone to Ceile’s research. I tried to avoid calling the relationship between Jeremy and Ceile a feud—but it was kind of a feud.

Dad pointed his fork at me again. “This Ceile says that Anderson is crazy. Do you want to be caught up in the middle of this?”

“Yes, Dad, I do.”

“That’s not how I raised you.”

“Please,” I snapped, and then bit down on my tongue so none of the other words flew out. You barely raised me at all. You barely came home from the office for long enough to pat me on the head before disappearing into your study.

He raised his brows. “What was that, young lady?”

I shook my head and dug into my Pad Thai.

Silence descended and stretched.

Then Mom sniffed. “I went to Ireland once.”

“You went to Scotland,” Dad corrected.

“I went to Ireland too.”

Dad cut her a dismissive sneer. I felt it scrape across my spine and tried not to wince. “When?”

“When I was eighteen. They flew me out for a weekend shoot.”

“And you’re positive it wasn’t Scotland?”

Forks scraped against plates. I desperately searched for something to say.

Please, I thought. Get me out of here. Get me to Ireland.

Cam looked up from her email when I walked into our apartment. “Your undergrad friend emailed me back. She’s going to sublet for the summer.”

“Great.” I flopped down on the couch.

“Whoa.” Cam’s head snapped up. “You’re wearing pearls. And a cardigan. Dinner with the Sullivans?”

“Yes, and it was just darling.” I unhooked the line of freshwater mussel irritants and slung it across the room into my shoebox of jewelry. “I can’t get to Ireland soon enough.”

“Any news on the football front?”

“Yes! I got an email on the way up to my parents’. I’m going to meet with Mike O’Connor tomorrow.”

“Oh, good.” She paused, and then said in her attempting-to-be-delicate voice: “Have you thought what you’re going to do if he says no?”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if doesn’t give you permission to dig?”

I waved a hand. “Come on, he’s a first-string Leopard. He doesn’t need a little non-functional farm in Ireland.”

“Yeah, probably. Though, you know, it wouldn’t be awful if you stayed here this summer. I mean, if you stayed in one place for longer than six months, you could probably even date.”

I laughed. “I’m way too busy to date anything other than my carbon.”

“You’ve already made that joke,” Cam said, a little more acerbically than I thought warranted. “What about that guy in your program that you got lunch with yesterday? How was that?”

I shrugged. “It was fine. It was lunch. I had a strawberry gazpacho soup. Pretty exciting.”

“Oh my God.” Cam stepped over the back of the couch and dropping down on it. “Nothing happened.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I pushed my shoulders back defensively. “I smiled. We talked.”

“See, this is why you don’t have a boyfriend. You were probably all chummy when you should have been, you know, cute.”

“Hey.” I waved a hand down the length of my body. “What about this isn’t cute?”

Cam shook her head. “I just don’t even know what I’m going to do with you.”

“It’s not my fault. It’s not like I’m friend zoning everyone, they’re friend zoning me.”

“Well, you’re helping them right along.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands against her thighs. “Okay. Here’s the plan. We’ll call it Operation Irish Boyfriend. You find an Irish boyfriend.”

“Great! What’s the plan?”

“That’s it. Go and find a boyfriend.”

“Hey, I’m finding a connection between ancient Rome and Ireland. I need a more detailed plan than that. I expect it in my inbox by Thursday.”

She mimed tossing a pillow at me. “It won’t be that hard.”

“Whatever, I don’t need to. The carbon, you know. It’ll be keeping me busy.”

“Oh my God. Stop.”

I dropped onto the opposite side of the couch from her. “What? I’m sorry I prioritize my work.”

“You don’t prioritize work, you completely ignore your emotional health. It’s like you’re a little emotionless bot trained by Madame Sullivan to react to all situations with grace and poise and the best angle to be photographed, but without any legit feelings.”

“I’m sorry, when did you switch from engineering to psychology?”

“Only someone who doesn’t understand simple human behavior would interpret this as legit psychology. This is common knowledge. Besides—wait.” Cam sat up with a fervor that made me very, very wary. “I have an idea.”

“Nope.” My pendulous earrings swung out as I shook my head. “I’m not doing it.”

“No, I swear, this is a good one.” Cam gathered her hair upward and then let it cascade down. If I had been less afraid, I might have commented that this made Cam look like a mad scientist, but instead I just waited. Last time Cam had spoken in that tone, we’d ended up doing past-life regression, and the stupid regresser kept saying I was a medieval serf while Cam got to be a pirate queen. “What have you been complaining about for a solid week?”

That sounded like a trick question. “The theft of my harbor?”

Apparently I’d answered correctly, because Cam bounced up and down. “Exactly! Exactly. Who stole your harbor?”

“I thought leading questions were bad.”

“For lawyers, not best friends. So?”

I gave in. “Michael O’Connor.”

“Who you’re seeing tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, though did I tell you they wouldn’t even give me a real time?” I swung my legs over the couch arm, and dropped my head into Cam’s lap. “Just sometime between three and six. I’m terrified that if I’m five minutes late they’ll say I missed my chance.”

“Okay, that’s not the point.” Cam waved a hand dismissively. “The point is that Mike O’Connor is a highly attractive individual.”

I flushed. “Then why don’t you go out with him.”

“Aha!” Cam stabbed a finger at me. “See! There. You implied you wanted to date him.”

I pushed back my shoulders defensively. “I did not. I just know how your mind works. It was a preemptive strike.”

“Come on, this is brilliant. You have a perfectly legitimate reason to talk to him.”

“Yeah, it’s a business meeting.”

“Right, he’ll sign the papers and then you’ll never see him again. So it’s not like you can get embarrassed if it goes badly, because then you don’t have to see him. But if it goes well, then you get to date a Leopard player.”

“Do I get a gold star too?”

Cam narrowed her eyes. “Only if you’re lucky. Which, coincidentally,” she said, examining her nails and obviously compressing a smile, “will only be if you get lucky.”

I swatted at her nose.

“Think what a perfect story it would be for your grandkids! And you can totally pull it off. Seeing how the only generous thing Tamara ever did was give you her looks—”