He threw me an incredulous look. “Do people really play that game?”
“It was a dare at one of my friend’s parties. Her first boy-girl party, and she must have searched the internet for terrible ideas.” It had been Mira’s party. One of the few parties in middle school I remembered going to.
“And did you kiss for the whole seven minutes?”
“Rob definitely would have, but I made us play a get-to-know-you game for six minutes and forty-five seconds first.”
“Poor guy. So how was that kiss? Better or worse than ours?”
Ours.
What an utterly sexy word. And completely inappropriate, given that I didn’t know this man. But regardless, flutters made their way in a flurry around my stomach.
I pretended to think. “Rob had braces, so that made it exciting.”
He grinned, pulling onto the freeway, heading south. “I feel like I know a lot about you and also very little at the same time.”
“What do you know about me?”
“I know you work somewhere downtown, you’ve got a killer smile when you let it loose, and that you’ll flirt with another guy while you’re on a date.”
“What?” I protested loudly while his deep chuckle warmed the empty space between us. “You started it!”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “You kept snuggling closer and touching my arm, giving me very mixed signals. I was beginning to feel sorry for poor Jason.”
A smile lit my face even while I protested loudly. “You were not.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“So you can admit that it was ALL you.”
He turned to look at me, eyebrows raised, looking like he was holding back a grin. “Really?Allme?”
I could feel my face heat up as I remembered exactly how forward I had become at the game. But I couldn’t admit that. “It was mostly you.”
“Mostly. You add the most telling words to your sentences.”
I could only shake my head. “You were the one talking to me while I was on a date.”
“I was trying to be a gentleman and share the armrest.”
“You’re a saint. You did smell a lot better than my Jason, I’ll give you that.”
“YourJason?”
“Mydate, Jason.”
He chuckled, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel.
“I’m not usually like that,” I said, breaking into the five seconds of silence. I was suddenly desirous for him to know that tonight had been a very unusual moment in my extremely boring, work-all-the-time, go-to-school, non-dating, just-missing-the-cats, cat-lady life. “I’m always very loyal to my dates right up to the doorstep.”
“I’m not usually like that either.”
“Usually?” I gave him a side-eye.
Another smile. “Usually.”
He took the next exit. “I’ve always wanted to be on the kiss cam, though, and look at that…got my wish,” he said.
