“Goodbye, River.” I stepped around him and headed for the stairs. The avoidance only made it all the more obvious that River had hit the nail on the head. There was in fact a guy, and I was dying to see him again.
TWENTY-THREE
SAWYER
“You’re early.”I didn’t even try to hide the way I smiled when I opened the door and saw Lukas standing on the other side of it. He was supposed to come over after he wrapped up filming, but I wasn’t expecting him for another couple of hours. He stepped close, greeting me with a kiss. “I hope everything went well.”
“The shoot was really great. Better than I’d expected actually.”
He shrugged out of his jacket, and I took it from him, hanging it in the closet by the front door.
“Today was Ash’s shoot, right?”
“Yeah. He did great, though. Sometimes the new guys can be a bit awkward, or the chemistry just isn’t there, or people’s bodies don’t cooperate the way they want them to. There are a million things that can go wrong, but none of them did.” As Lukas spoke, he stepped close to me and wrapped his armsaround my waist. I looped my arms around his neck and tried to ignore the way my heart raced when he looked at me.
A smile tugged at his lips. “I let River loose on the footage so I could get over here and spend the rest of the night with you. Tell me about your day.”
“Well, after I woke up, I worked for a few hours and made some great progress on your book. Then I met my friend Yvette for lunch. I made a few stops on the way home. I did a bit more work, and then I was getting things ready for you when you showed up early.”
“Things?” Lukas asked. “What things?”
“Remember when we were talking about shit we didn’t get to do as kids?” I pulled away from him, grabbing his hand so I could lead him deeper into the house. “It wasn’t really planned. It was kind of spur of the moment.” I studied Lukas’s face for a reaction.
I’d decorated my house in birthday decor. I’d bought cake and ice cream for us to share. And gifts. The Happy Birthday banner was the first thing that caught Lukas’s attention, though, and he turned to me with a confused expression.
“It’s not my birthday.”
“There’s no rule that says we can’t celebrate anyway. We have cake and ice cream, and I bought you something.” I pulled out a chair and motioned for him to take it. “Sit. We can unwrap presents; then maybe later we’ll have cake. And no birthday party is complete without hot dogs.”
Lukas lowered himself into the chair and kept looking around the room like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His eyes widened when I produced a package in bright, birthday-themed wrapping paper.
“You’re not serious.” He took the gift and looked at it for a moment. I had no way of knowing what was going on insidehis head, but then he looked up at me and grinned. “This is completely unnecessary, but… thank you.”
“Thank me after you open the gift.”
Lukas tore into the gift the way a kid might, with unbridled enthusiasm. He tore the paper down the middle then worked at getting it off the box.
“I hope it’s not stupid, and it might be a little selfish, but I figured you might not have had one, and I wasn’t allowed to play with these kinds of toys.”
He stared at the toy guns, the kind that shot foam darts. My parents hadn’t wanted me playing violent games or games with toy guns. And knowing the way Lukas had grown up, I doubted there was any money for things like this.
“This is fucking cool.” Lukas tore into the box, carefully stacking the trash in a pile on the table. Once he freed the guns from their packaging, he loaded them up with their foam bullets and handed me one. “I’ve never had one of these before.”
He fired off a test round, hitting me in the chest.
“I’ve been hit.” I covered the place where he shot me and pretended to stagger. “Run. Save yourself.”
Lukas picked up the dart and put it back in the gun, then handed me the other one. “I assume you got two for a reason.”
I took the toy gun from him and grinned. “You assume correctly.” I didn’t give him a word of warning. I just pointed the gun at him and shot him in the chest. Lukas gasped and aimed his gun at me, but I dodged out of the way, cackling with laughter as his bullet whizzed past me, missing entirely.
I heard the chair scrape across the floor as he got to his feet and chased me down. I dove into the living room, ducking behind the couch. Crouching low to shield myself, I popped up and fired a shot at Lukas. I missed but he didn’t. The rubber tip of the foam dart smacked into my neck and I reached up with my free hand to rub the tingle out of my skin.
“That kind of stings,” I told him. My words gave him pause, and I used that to my advantage and fired off a shot that did not miss.
“That’s dirty,” Lukas said, ducking around the corner to take cover as I fired off another shot.
“All is fair in love and war!” I called out as I shuffled along the floor, circling around to the other end of the couch, hoping to be able to peek out and pop off a few shots from a different angle.
