“I’m leaving ‘Primetime’ now. I’ll be home soon.” Her wide eyes stare into mine.
“Why thefuckare you at a bar? Have you been drinking?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be dense, Jakob.” The annoyance rings strong through her voice.
“How are you feeling? I should probably come get you. Annie will be here soon.”
“No, you won’t. I’m leaving now. See you in fifteen at the latest. Ich liebe dich.” She says with a sing-song tone.
“Ich liebe dich. You’re going to drive me to drink, I swear. I’ll have gray hairs from you before long.”
“No, you won’t. You know how I feel about people who drink excessively. I’ll be home soon. Bye, big brother.” She hangs up and looks at me smiling. I have to pretend that thefeeling of being punched in the solar plexus is from her smile alone and not from her talking about people who drink.
“Let me walk you home?” I reach out and twine our fingers together. I’ll do anything to just spend ten more minutes with her.
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be okay.”
“I don’t feel like I have to. I want to.” My thumb rubs along the back of her hand while she thinks it over.
“Okay. Let me just tell Nix.”
I fish my phone out of my pocket and hit my brother’s name, pulling the phone up to my ear. I widen my eyes at her and smile to ease the lingering nerves left in the air. Her giggle tells me that it did the trick.
“Where the fuck are you?” Kieran’s voice comes out loud and no nonsense. Partially because of the music in the background and partially because he was too preoccupied with Pigeon to see me walk off earlier.
“Well… I’m in a storage closet. Listen, that’s not important. I’m going to walk Lelonie home, her brother just called her. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
“M? I don’t know if-.”
I cut him off because I know she can hear him, “It’s fine, K. I’ll be back in twenty, and if I’m not, you can burn the city down.” I hang up before he can say anything else. “Okay, let’s go.”
* * *
Walking downtown with this stunning woman holding my hand and the lingering taste of her on my tongue, my life seriously couldn’t be any better. We haven’t talked muchsince leaving the bar, but we have about ten minutes left, and I have a question that’s been burning at the back of my mind.
“So your brothers seem pretty protective of you?” I decide to ask instead of what I really want to.
“Yeah, my parents and sister too. We’re all pretty protective of each other.”
“You know I tried to look you up after you told me to check your birth certificate. You know what’s strange? I can’t find anything. Not even a birth certificate.” She tries to bite back her smile.
“Yeah, you won’t. You’re good Mac, I’ll give you that. You’re the only person who has been able to challenge my brain since we both started working. I’m just better. You won’t find a single thing on me, my sister, or my Mama. If you want to know something, you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way.”
She’s right, but she didn’t have to go in that hard. Talk about a hit to the ego. “The old fashioned way, huh? How is that fair when you can look up most things about me?”
Her laugh warms my entire body up. “I promise to pretend I know nothing from this point on. I’m just a girl walking downtown with a boy who has kind eyes and a breathtaking smile. Does that work?”
“You think my smile is breathtaking?” I tease her to break up some of the tension, but I can’t completely dismiss that she just gave me the in I’ve been looking for. She nudges me with her shoulder when I don’t answer how she wants. “Yeah, that works. But I propose one amendment.”
“What’s that?” Her eyes narrow.
“We have to tell the truth.”
She sighs before she pulls us to a stop and looks up into myeyes. Her emerald ones are so gorgeous it makes my soul ache. “Amendment accepted. The truth, always. But we reserve the right to veto any question we feel like we aren’t ready to share. No lies, just veto power.”
“Sounds fair to me, but we can’t keep the veto forever, just until we’re comfortable answering.” I pull her into my arms, and when she subtly presses a little higher on her toes, I take her mouth with mine. It’s a chaste kiss to seal a deal, but it lights me up all the same. I pull away all too soon for my liking, but she wants to do this right, so we’re going to do this right.
“Okay, deal. So what’s your first question, Mac-attack?” She smiles up at me, her eyes dancing with mirth.
