She’s observant. Note to self: make sure she doesn’t see you when you check her out from the hot tub.
I open the passenger door for her and try not to watch as she slides into the front seat. But I like the way she moves. I like the way she flicks her hair off her shoulder. I like, too, how she settles into my car, like she’s comfortable being there.
When I jerk my gaze away from her, I’m shaking my head at myself.
Because I also like that she enjoyed the drink, plain and simple. Which—fuck me—means I didn’t make it to prove a point to myself that I’m cool and in control.
I made it…for her.
“Your car could win an award,” Skylar remarks with a whistle of appreciation as she looks around the interior, checking it out while we zip off.
“Yeah? For what?” I ask, since it feels like I’m being set up.
“Neatest car ever,” she says. “This is Swedish, right? It’s that new Swedish electric car that everyone’s loving?”
“Yup,” I say, “but I didn’t get it to be trendy.”
“Of course not. You got it because it’s very you—form follows function,” she says.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say warily.
“It is,” she says, then peers at the floor again, then at me with assessing eyes. “Look at the floor. Did you vacuum it this morning?”
“Obviously.”
“Wait. Why is that obvious?”
“How is it not? Things don’t get clean on their own,” I say as I turn onto Castro Street.
“But you clean it every day?” She seems perplexed by this.
“No, Skylar. A magical fairy appears out of thin air with a broom.”
“I’m even more impressed now that the car is cleaned with a broom,” she says.
I fight off a laugh. “So it’s the broom for you? Not the fairy?”
“Oh, the fairy’s cool too,” she says, then lifts a hand toward the gleaming dashboard, like she’s about to stroke it, but she jerks her hand back a second before she touches it. “Wait. Am I allowed to touch it?”
“Why would you not be allowed to touch it?”
“Because it’s so neat, so Swedish, so…excellent,” she says, then takes a drink of her smoothie, making another one of those sensual purrs. I keep my focus firmly on the road. Not on her lips. Not on that sound. Looking at her mouth right now would be a serious hazard.
She cranes her neck around to the back seat, then returns to the front. “Yep. Just like I imagined.”
“You imagined my car?” I ask. This woman keeps me on my conversational toes, that’s for sure.
“Definitely. I had a feeling it would be like this,” she says as I slow at a light. “Are you a neat freak, Ford Devon?”
I bristle. “Just neat. Nothing freakish about it whatsoever.”
She nods. “Hey, neat freak is a compliment too.”
I scoff. “How do you figure? It’s got freak in it.”
“Maybe I like neat freaks,” she says, smirking, “who drive Swedish cars.” With an impish shrug, she takes another sip of her drink, her lips curved around the metal straw.
My jaw tightens, and I grab the mug from the console, then knock back some kale smoothie like it’s the source of my superpower. Well, I hope it is, but as I set it back down in the holder on the console, I nearly do a double take. Wait—is that her dog giving me the side-eye on the mug?
