Her long, glittery, pointed fingernail is in my face as she spits out the words. “You think premier Chinese food earns you redemption after the shit you pulled? You don’t get to sneak into my home and expect me to fawn all over you. You’re still a stranger to me, and a moody one at that.”
Moody? Am I moody? Holy shit. I am moody. She’s absolutely right. Damn it. “I get it. I get it. I do. I don’t expect Chinese food to fix anything. I was a shit this morning. You did me a favor. I owe you. Can I please just feed you? After that, if you want to kick me out, I’m gone.” What I don’t say is there’s no way in hell that I’ll stay gone, but she doesn’t need to know the lengths I’ll go to quite yet. It’s still too early for that.
Her eyes narrow to slits, causing her long, thick lashes to almost obscure her vision. Suddenly, she seems to think of something. “Who told you to get Wu’s?”
My eyes dart all over the walls of the hall as if I’ll find backup there. My gaze catches on a picture of another duck. This duck has the head of Christopher Walken smoking a cigar, and it’s riding a shark in open water.Shit. This girl is about to verbally eviscerate me before chopping my body up into tiny pieces and shoving them into a crawl space.
“The freak show twins. As your newly appointed proxies, they’ve deemed me worthy of your time.”
She takes a shocked step back, surveying me from head to toe. As though she found nothing worthy of her time, she asks, “Why you?”
The look she’s giving me is offensive.
Well, for one, I’m hot. I know I am. For two, I am pretty much the baddest mother fucker in any room. For three, I’m funny as hell. I’m sure there’s a four in here somewhere, but something tells me this is not the best approach.She’s obviously not as attracted to me as I am to her. When she’s near me, there’s a constant internal battle to keep my hands and my lips to myself. She, however, appears to be in complete control of all her faculties, particularly her anger. This is a first. It’s always been me who’s the cool, aloof one.
“We made a deal. I may have to steal an otter from the zoo at some point.”
She tucks her full red lips tightly between her teeth in a feeble attempt to fight off a laugh. It doesn’t work. She spits on me as her laugh bursts through the lip barrier, and I don’t even care.Her laugh. Her unguarded smile. This is bliss. This is worth the breaking and entering charge, I still may end up facing.
Her laugh begins to soften, and she looks at me with what appears to be continued amusement and warning. She’s still angry, but her edges aren’t as sharp now.
“Okay. Fine, but screw up again, and I’ll make you a chalk outline. This is just dinner, and only because this is a stupid amount of food. What were you even thinking?”
Nervously, I rub the back of my neck. “The Tweedle Twins said you like everything on the menu, and I kind of needed it to be more than you could carry in one load, so I could sneak in. Sooo, I just ordered one of everything.”
She appears dubious. Her confusion works in my favor because it seems to further dampen her rage. “Tweedle Twins?”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. The rotund twins from Alice in Wonderland. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.”
She laughs again, and I silently scheme how I can ensure that I hear this sound every day for the rest of my life.
“The Tweedle Twins. I love it. You mind if I use it?”
“It’s the least I can do since you’re sharing your takeout?”
She cocks her head to the side and ponders my request. “Not the Shanghai Dumplings. Those are mine.”
“Ah, I got two of those actually. I love dumplings.”
Her expression says,‘put one finger on a dumpling and I make an origami swan out of you’.
My hands shoot back up in surrender. “All yours. I don’t even like dumplings anymore. May even be allergic.”
Vaughn rolls her eyes dramatically and walks back into the kitchen. I’m not sure what to do. One wrong move could have my body twisted at some very uncomfortable angles. I take a step toward the kitchen and then retract it. Another step. Another retraction.When in my life have, I ever been this unsure of myself? I run TOWARD gunfire, and I can’t decide if this kitchen is safe?
“Are you coming?!” Vaughn angrily yells from the kitchen.
Shit. Get in the kitchen, dumbass. I sprint to the kitchen.Phew. This is a stupid amount of food. What kind of idiot orders this much food? A moody idiot digging his way out of a hole. That’s who.I take a seat at the table and help her unpack some of the food from the bags. It won’t all fit on the table, so we leave some things in the bags and move them back to the kitchen counter.
My eyes stay glued to her. Even when she catches me staring, I can’t look away. She gives me a suspicious look each time her beautiful dark eyes meet mine.She’s still wary.I suppose I can’t blame her. The ex-boyfriend was a penis loaf. If he was willing to grab her like that in public, I can only imagine what he was willing to do in private. My blood pressure skyrockets, and my vision blurs at the thought of that dick weed putting his hands on her.
“Did he hit you?” It’s not my place to ask, and the question comes out of the blue, but I have to know.
Her fork pauses briefly in the air before she stabs a dumpling. She appears to be thinking. “Mmm, No. He didn’t hit me.” She puts the entire dumpling in her mouth.
She’s telling the truth. Mostly. He did do something to her, but he didn’t hit her. I want to know more, but I’m already on thin ice, so I choose not to pry further. Instead, I do the opposite.
“I’m in the military. The Navy, actually. I spend a lot of time away. Can’t resist karaoke when I’ve had too much to drink, and I don’t sing well. I love to play paintball, and can’t dive for shit. It’s something about plunging headfirst that I just can’t wrap my mind around. I mean, I do it, but not as well as I probably should considering...well, it was a pretty major source of contention in training. Fortunately, I’m pretty decent at the rest of it. My favorite type of food is American cuisine. You know, just meat and potatoes, basically anything you can cook on a grill, but my favorite dish is Arroz de Pato. It’s a classic Portuguese dish.”
