Rehearsal dinner at Our Little Secret!” Kristin announces. “Chop-chop, let’s go, everybody. Remember to give our name at the door.Yoon.” She squeals. “I’m going to be Mrs. Yoon.”
“Would you like some ice?” Alex asks comfortably as I climb into the passenger seat of his truck, concentrating anywhere but on him.
“For what?”
“You’re looking all hot and bothered.” He meets my scowl with a pleased smile. “Might help.”
“Bothered as inannoyed.”
“Bothered as inindecent.” He clucks his tongue. “Pull down the mirror and take a look at yourself.”
“I will not.”
“All right, I’ll look enough for the both of us.” He lets out a whistle. “Whew, all this just from a hand on your waist.”
My scowl deepens as he shuts my door, rounding the front. Laughing! He’s trying to get me riled up. It’s working.
“So,” he says as he starts the engine. “What’re your plans for after you’re done with Trevor? Got anybody lined up?”
I snort, allowing my gaze to drift out my window. It’s an awfully bouncy truck; I don’t know the terminology but I’m pretty sure something is wrong with his shocks. I have to hold my door handle for dear life as we rocket over the large rocks half embedded in the parking lot, and again he has the nerve to hum placidly, all cool, easy amusement. “You love to hear yourself talk.”
“You hear my voice? Rich as sin, honey, you love to hear it, too.” He grins as he checks behind him, backing out.
I watch his hands on the steering wheel. Palms on the torn vinyl, fingers raised. “Like smooooooth whiskey.”
“So into yourself.” I reach for the music.
He bats my hand away from the dials. “No, you don’t.”
“Why?” I press a few buttons, howling when a CD ejects. “You still buy CDs! That’s so old school.”
“It’s classic,” he corrects, even though this isn’t a proper CD. It’s coated with a silver sticker, a label he didn’t bother filling in.
“They have this thing called Bluetooth now,” I tease. He grabs the CD from me, throwing it onto the narrow bench seat behind us.
“Hey! I wasn’t done snooping.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t run out of stuff to stick your nose in before we get to the restaurant.”
So true. I page through a battered copy ofBirdWatchingmagazine. He’s got more of them rolled up in the glovebox.
He glances. “Reading material for my lunch break.”
“Into birds, are we?”
He twitters a rapid, musical birdcall. “Was that a house wren? You’d think so! However. It was actually me. Realistic, eh?”
This successfully steals a laugh from me. I try to cough it away.
Motivated, he imitates a different birdcall, this one akin toa machine gun drill. “Chipping sparrow.” He swings a look at me. “I know what you’re thinking right now.”
“Please tell.”
“You’re thinking,Ooh, Alex is soooo good at birdcalls, but you won’t tell me so, because you don’t want me to know how impressed you are.”
“I’m actually thinking,Ooh, Alex has the biggest head in the universe.”
“Biggest, and most irresistible.”
