She went back to her breakfast. "I'm not going to make a mess that I'll just have to clean up." She smiled. "I'll just choose someone really obnoxious for your next date, princey-poo."
Valentin did not look impressed.
"Let's see. There was someone from your university days. She claimed to have been your perfect match. What was her name...? Hildy? Hilary?"
She tapped the tines of her fork against her lips.
Now Valentin was going a little green. "You wouldn't dare."
"Heidi! That was it. I happen to have her phone number in my files. I'm sure she'd love a chance to catch up."
He set his mostly empty plate on the counter. "I'll have you run out of the country," he said sternly.
"What?" Michael asked.
"She was in a couple of my early college classes and is obsessed with royalty,” Valentin said. “She followed me around for weeks, constantly asking me out for coffee or drinks. There's no way—"
He broke off when her giggles escaped.
And the look he shot her was pure venom. The benign kind, a look she'd received from her brothers frequently during their childhood.
"I am relieved to know you're only cruel enough to joke about torturing me with a date with a maniac. Not actually cruel enough to submit me to it."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Reid said before he slurped his coffee. "She's got a mean streak. Once dyed all my unmentionables pink."
"That wasMichael," she said.
Unmentionables? Valentin mouthed to her.
She shrugged, a second case of the giggles sucking her under.
Some timeafter Crystal's brothers left, Valentin found himself lying flat on his back on the floor, staring up at her ceiling. There was a plaster patch in one corner, he thought. At some point, there'd been a leak there.
She'd shooed him out of the kitchen when he'd volunteered to help clean up. So he'd come in here and now listened to her rattling around as she washed up. He just basked in the sunshine.
"Who is Harry?" he called out to her.
He'd overheard Michael murmur to her as the two men had been leaving the apartment.I like him much so much better than Harry.
And for some reason, he felt a burning need to know who Harry was. A friend? An ex-husband?
He heard the tinking of dishes. She didn't answer, and he wondered if maybe she hadn't heard.
And then she did answer, hesitatingly. "Harry was my ex-boyfriend."
"Ah." What was the twisty, uncomfortable feeling in his gut? It couldn't be jealousy. He had no claim on her. They were friends.
"Are you dating anyone now?" That was a friendly thing to ask, wasn't it?
More swishing. More clinking. "No. Things didn't... end well with Harry. It's made me a little gun shy."
Join the club.
"What happened?"
She didn't answer.
"Sorry. Too personal," he called out. Though he was dying to know.
