He shook his head and walked back to the dining room. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That’s something else my granddad used to say.”
I chased after him. “I wasn’t lying. Grandmother hasn’t given me the money yet, that’s all.”
“And when is that supposed to happen?”
“Before she goes home.”
“At the end of summer?” He crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side because he already knew the answer to his question.
“Yeah. You’ll get your money if we work together.”
“Forget it. Keep the money. I’ll come up with the rest of my down payment some other way.”
“Come on, Cash. Please.”
He sighed long and heavy. “Look, I’ll help you out tomorrow. But after that, you’re on your own.”
“That’s it then? There isn’t anything I can do to change your mind?”
He suddenly locked his eyes onto mine with such intensity my lashes fluttered. “There is one thing.”
My stomach jumped as hope came to life again. “Name it, and I’ll do it.”
“Date me for real.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
“Are you kidding me right now?” I asked.
I couldn’t tell what was louder, the blood whooshing through my ears or my pounding heart. Maybe it was the little voice inside my head screaming at me to run away and hide under my futon until this miserable day was over.
Whichever it was, I didn’t care. At least there was enough commotion going on inside me to drown out any more of Cash’s crazy talk. “Dating you for real is the exact opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing.”
I hurried back to the kitchen and got busy scrubbing the stack of dishes in the sink. Yes, touching dirty dishes was preferable to the conversation Cash was trying to have with me. My would-be beau was out of his mind if he thought I would ever consider dating him for real.
“It makes perfect sense, if you think about it.” He followed me in and rested his backside against the counter on the other side of the room.
As hard as it was to look him in the eye at the moment, it was even more difficult to have my back to him, knowing his eyes were on me. I grabbed a dish towel to dry my hands and turned around. I kept ahold of it long after my hands were dry, wishing it was big enough to hide behind.
Cash didn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable his suggestion had just made things. He kept talking all nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just said the most outlandish thing in his life. “I don’t want to lie. You don’t want to lie, and you don’t want to lose your granny—”
I crossed my arms and cocked a hip. “Grandmother.”
“Fine, you don’t want to lose yourgrandmother. So, what other option do we have besides turning this lie into the truth?”
Drat his beautiful brain! His logic was irrefutable. But I was no Vulcan and logic held little sway over me.
I was about to tell him as much but thought better of it at the last second. Bragging about one’s affinity for chaos wasn’t a good look. But that’s definitely what I had—a love affair with chaos. I wasn’t just a chaos-lover, I was a full-on chaoscreator.What else could explain the mess I’d made for myself?
“This is the only way,” he said, filling a couple mugs with coffee from a pot I hadn’t noticed yet. He held one out to me. “We make it real, or we end this thing right here and now.”
I half expected him to ask if I take cream or sugar with my ultimatums. Well, the joke was on him because I took both.
Our fingers brushed when he put the cup in my hand, and I flinched at the sparks it made. I hurried up and held it in front of my heart. It was my only protection against Cupid’s sneaky arrows that were sure to start flying if Cash didn’t stop looking at me with those smoldering eyes.
“Okay, slow down and let’s talk about this.” I took a deep breath and bought a little time by blowing on my steaming cup of coffee. “You don’t even know me well enough to—”
I blinked as Cash invaded my space, pouring enough cream into myblackcoffee to turn it intotaupecoffee instead. How did he know I took a little coffee with my cream?
