“Who needs healthy when you thrive on dysfunction?”
“Are you talking about them or yourself?”
“Excuse me, darling, butIam the one running this inquisition. Please remember your place. Carry on. Tell me about the appliances.”
She murmurs something that sounds likeworse than my brothers.
“Of course I am,” I reply. “I have many more—hic!—years of experience.”
She laughs again, and I drown in her dimples again.
It would be so warm and cozy to live inside her dimples. To escape the rest of the world, right there in her face. To be in her cheeks. So close to her mouth.
Good god, have I ever been this drunk? “Ms. Best.”
“Yes?”
“Can one truly fall in love over household appliances?”
She shrugs, which somehow makes the entire bus tilt sideways. “Who wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone who managed everything from picking them out to overseeing same-day delivery? It wasn’t the money—I offered to pay her back. It was the time and mental energy. I was so grateful that it was something I didn’t have to handle solo that I cried all overher and then made her my dad’s butternut squash risotto and barbecue chicken with his secret sauce to thank her.”
“I was unaware that was an option for dinner this evening.”
“It wasn’t an option for dinner tonight.”
“Tomorrow night, then.”
“Simon. We are not having atomorrow night.”
Is it getting woozier in here, or is it my bubbly? “Why not?”
“Are you the same person who just said you don’t like me?”
“That’s no reason to never see each other again.”
“Maybe not for you. But I like hanging out with people who like me and who I like back.”
“Do you not like me?”
Of course she likes me.
I’m incredibly likable. And charming.
And stinking drunk.
“It’s irrelevant if I like you,” she tells me.
I blink slowly at her, and it takes her entirely too long to come into focus when I open my eyes again. “Why?”
“I’m getting over a breakup. I don’t want to date a single dad because I already raised three kids and I’m done. I need to put my energy into growing my business. I like my life the way it is. You’re famous, and I don’t want that level of scrutiny on me or my brothers. Should I go on?”
I roll my eyes heavenward, which makes my entire body feel spinny and swoony. “Ms. Best.”
“Yes, Simon?”
“Could you please write down the rest of your answers to the rest of the questions I ask you while I fall asleep? I—hic!—don’t want to miss a thing, but I…”
But I.
