She blinked at him, another scoff falling out of her mouth. “Are you kidding? You work with celebrities.”
“As abehind-the-scenesassistant,” he said. “Never the one out front.” He turned his glare back out to the windshield so it wouldn’t be aimed at her. “I grew up around celebrity, and I didn’t want it.”
“I think that might be the first thing we have in common,” Joey said.
Adam scoffed now, but he realized quickly that Joey hadn’t made a joke. “You really think we don’t have anything in common?”
“Name something,” she challenged.
“We both like coffee,” he said without missing a beat. “We both like staying out of the spotlight. We both like living in a small town. We both like cooking.” His grin appeared instantly on his face. “Okay, I can’t tell a lie. That last one is totally false. I hate cooking.”
Joey burst out laughing, and that had been Adam’s goal. He wanted to make her laugh like that every day for the rest of her life, and then maybe she wouldn’t look so sad standing in the shadows at her own family party, and he wouldn’t find her crying around the corner of any more houses.
He made a turn and started back to her grandparents’ place. “We’re nearing the end here, Joey,” he said. “You’ve got to tell me what you want.”
She reached over and took his hand into hers. She covered it with her other one, and all ten of her fingers stroked along his, tracing his fingernails and running down the sides of his fingers, between them, and along the lines on his palm. Adam fought against the shivers threatening to shake his whole body with every touch of her skin against his.
“I think,” she said, as he came to a stop at a red light. “I mean—if you asked me out again, I would say yes.”
“So you want me to come to dinner?”
“If you’re comfortable with it,” she said.
“No,” he almost barked. “That’s not what we agreed. You said you would tell me if you wanted me there or not.”
He looked over to her, not sure how long this particular light would hold them at a stop. She glared back, and oh, hecould see the same stubbornness and headstrong qualities inside her that he possessed. Another thing they had in common.
“All right, cowboy,” she said. “You can come to dinner—if you wear the hat.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Joey’s ribs tap danced against her heart as she led Adam down the sidewalk to her grandparents’ condo. She’d been living there for a while now, but she still couldn’t call it her house. Adam hadn’t asked her why she lived there, but something compelled her to tell him.
“When I dropped out of culinary school,” she said. “I felt like a real loser. I couldn’t do anything for more than a year at a time, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life.”
He looked over to her, that serious expression on his face. “I know that feeling,” he said.
“Did you ever go to college?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, and I literally just spent the last couple of years of my life getting paid to go to Walmart for your cousin.” He cracked a rare smile, but he didn’t let it get to megawatt status.
“When I moved home,” Joey said, feeling safer and more comfortable with him now. “I didn’t want to move back into my mom and dad’s place. My biological mother lives up in Dog Valley with my grandmother, and she’s been sick for a long time. I didn’t want to move there either.”
“I didn’t know your mother lived up there,” he said.
“Yeah, Dog Valley is nice.”
“I need to buy my own place,” he said. “And I’m gonna look everywhere. Dog Valley, Rusk, Coral Canyon.”
Joey made a face and shook her head.
“What?” he asked with a slight laugh.
“Rusk?” She shook her head again. “Do you know how far away Rusk is?”
“It came up within the radius I put on the real estate website,” he said. “Within an hour, I think.” He glanced over to her, and she liked the way he seemed to ask her without words.
