“I’m soooo hungry.” She chewed on the edge of her thumbnail.
“Eating your own dead skin won’t do the trick. I have dinosaur nuggets at home, though.” I kept the processed, gross food especially for her.
“Say less. And ketchup?”
I jerked my chin in a nod.
“A Heinz bottle? With all the added sugar and sodium?” She was giddy. And fun. Andalive. So alive it made me momentarily forget about all the death around me. About informing people, day in and day out, that their cancer was terminal. Untreatable. Of watching the human spirit break. Again and again and a-mother-fucking-gain. And somehow remain sane in the process.
“What am I, an amateur?” I huffed. “Dream bigger, kid.”
“What could be better than ...oh, don’t tell me ...”
Our eyes met when I stopped at a traffic light. A cocky grin tugged at the corner of my lips. “I keep all the extra take-out ketchup in the fridge.”
“You’re joking.”
“I never joke about fast-food chain condiment packets.”
“Those taste the best.” She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, relishing this information. “Do you also have the buffalo ranch dressing?”
I speared her with a domineering look. “Naturally.”
“If you’re trying to seduce me, Grant Gerwig, I want you to know that it’s working.”
“Seduceyou?” I pretended to choke on my Gatorade. “I thought you were a sure thing. Why else would I let you pull me out of a date and give up a good parking spot?”
“You were on adate?”
She did a double take, realizing I was wearing the beige Henley she said made me look like Chris Evans. “You should’ve said! I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Can you drop me off at mine? It’s five minutes away, and then you can go back to yo—”
“Nah, the moment has passed.” I finished the dregs of the Gatorade before screwing the cap back on. “I mean, she’s great, don’t get me wrong. But it was too busy and too loud. I’d rather spend my time hanging out with you.”
“Taking a woman on a date on Valentine’s Day is a statement,” Layla said.
“She had tickets toSixand asked if I wanted the extra ticket. She didn’t want to take any money, so I booked us a restaurant.”
Jessica, my colleague, was intelligent, sweet, and adequately beautiful. But she was also very obviously not Layla Schmidt. She wasn’t quick witted, sarcastic, nauseatingly good with children, even better with adults, spontaneous, naturally curious, and—as far as I was aware—able to deep-throat me for ten minutes straight to an orgasm. It was a no-brainer. I’d choose five minutes in Layla’s company than immortality with anyone else.
“I have to compete withSixand a restaurant? Way to peer pressure a lady.” Layla sighed melodramatically. “Now I have no choice but to give you a happy ending tonight.”
“You were going to give it to me anyway.”
“True.” She popped the overhead sun visor and checked her teeth in the mirror, running her tongue over them. “You give great dick. And honestly? I kind of don’t hate you, you know, for a man.”
“You sure know how to make a guy blush. Are we going to talk about what happened in there?” I jerked my thumb behind my back as we wove through the heavy Valentine’s Day traffic.
“Nope,” she said, popping thep. “This is my safe place.” She gestured to her surroundings. “And I want to actively forget what happened back there, because I sure as hell will be reminded of it when Kellianne returns from her honeymoon next week.”
But I wasn’t about to let her drop the subject. We never talked about anything remotely serious, a way to keep the boundaries of our casual situationship intact. So the fact that she’d called me tonight, of all nights, and not her billion and two other friends, was telling.
“What the hell did he do to make you hate him so much?” I kept my tone light, casual. “Kill a baby or something?”
Layla wasn’t the kind of woman to hate on anyone other than actual mass murderers. Even then, she had an I-can-fix-him energy.
She flinched, like I’d hit her with the words. “I told you to drop it. You’re like a dog with a bone ... r.” She smirked devilishly, trying to mask her discomfort.
“That bad?” I tilted an eyebrow.
