He shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He goes to bite it, but I grab his wrist midair. “Give me that.”
He smirks, eyes sparkling. “That’s what I thought.”
I take a bite from his fingers, deliberately messy, just to annoy him. Sauce smudges the corner of my mouth and Vincent’s smile drops into something slower, warmer, as he wipes my lip with his thumb. “Messy,” he murmurs, like he loves it.
Heat pools in my cheeks. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“The... the face thing.”
“What face?” His eyes widens innocently.
“That face!” I flick his forehead and he yelps dramatically. “My job as your boyfriend,” he says proudly, “is to make the face.”
He leans in closer, lips almost brushing mine. “Especially when you’re sitting on me like this.”
I shove him lightly, even though my whole body is buzzing. “Eat your bruschetta.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He steals another bite as I reach into the next bag, pulling out two steaming containers of pasta. “Oh my god... Did you get the spaghetti?”
He nods.
“And the gnocchi?!”
“I got everything you stared at on the menu when we walked past the place last week.”
I blink at him. “I stared at the menu for like... five seconds.”
“You underestimate how obsessively I watch you,” he says, opening the container. “It’s unhealthy, actually.”
I shove his shoulder again. “Shut up.”
He grins. “Make me.”
The air shifts—warm, familiar, electric.
I feed him a forkful of my gnocchi and he moans dramatically.
I stare at him. “Oh, so whenIdo it,” I groan, “you laugh at me, butyoucan moan like you’re filming a cooking show porn edition?”
Vincent chokes. “A what?!”
“Oh don’t act innocent, you know exactly what you sound like.”
He throws his head back laughing, full belly-laugh, shaking under me. I swear I fall in love with that laugh every time.
We switch plates halfway through, sharing everything, stealing bites from each other, feeding each other small pieces like idiots. He steals the last piece of my garlic bread and starts running before I can process it. He literally runs across the beach.
I get up and chase him, shrieking, stumbling through the sand. “Give it back!”
“Never!” he shouts with his mouth full.
I tackle him, and we collapse into the sand in a pile of limbs, laughing until we can’t breathe. He brushes my hair away from my face, smiling like I hung the stars in the sky.
“Marshall?”
