“No,” I say, unable to suppress my own grin. “No need.” I press a kiss to the top of her head, just because I can. “Let’s eat chips and guac and figure out our next move.”
“Are you gonna date me?” she asks with a little smile.
“Mmm,” I hum. “Yeah. I’ll probably have to date you.”
“Are you gonna feed me food out of your secret fourth drawer?”
Crap. I forgot that she saw that. “That’s for emergencies only,” I say, my voice gruff. “Now pass the chips, Junipaide.”
25
IN WHICH JUNIPER MAKES ANOTHER HOUSE CALL
“You can’t justvisitsomeone like Lionel Astor.”
Aiden’s words go in one ear and out the other.
Actually, if we’re being truthful, I’m not sure they make it in that first ear at all. They might just bounce right off the side of my head.
“I don’t see why not,” I say. Nothing is going to deter me from this mission. If that means living in relative denial until I’m smacked in the face with reality, so be it. Maybe if I just manifest like crazy, I can will into being a reality where someone like me can march up to Lionel Astor’s front door and manage to actually get a meeting with him.
Crazier things have happened.
The passcode to the visitor’s entrance in the Heights hasn’t been changed since we came to see Tonya von Meller, which seems a little irresponsible, if you ask me. Any old loon could drive through this neighborhood to drop in on an unsuspecting virtual stranger. We pull in with ease, Sunshine clanking and clunking cheerfully as we go.
I didn’t have to drag Aiden to the car with me when I left,but he wasn’t exactly thrilled by my plan, either. I’m pretty sure he only came along to keep me from getting in too much trouble. He’s currently sunk down in the passenger seat as low as he can go, his head barely high enough to see out the window, his long legs wedged comically in the front seat of my Volkswagen Beetle. He keeps rubbing his hands over his face and muttering to himself, every now and then shooting me dirty looks.
“That’s not a very nice facial expression to make at your girlfriend,” I say in a singsong voice, mostly just to push his buttons.
“I regret everything,” he says darkly.
I shake my head. “It’s too late. We are one. We are Aidiper.”
“I take it all back.”
“And we’re socutetogether?—”
“Everything. I take everything back.”
“No take backs. Sorry.” I shrug, looking over at him. “I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.”
“Imake the rules,” he says, and I laugh.
“No. No way. Last time you made the rules, you said we would never be romantically involved. Remember that?”
“Meh,” he says, turning to look out the window.
“And if you’ll recall, I never actually broke any rules or crossed any lines,” I say reasonably. “That was all you.”
His head whips around as he looks at me in outrage. “It was notall me,” he says. He might look formidable if he weren’t still slouched down in his seat like a teenager who doesn’t want to be seen with his parents. “What about when you got stuck in the window?”
I gape at him. “I did nothing then! You, on the other hand—your hands went all Lewis and Clark and started exploring?—”
He snorts loudly, struggling to sit back up, wrestling with his seatbelt. “They didn’t explore,” he says, glaring at the lapbelt that’s currently holding him hostage around his rib cage. He fumbles around, finally releasing the seatbelt with a loud click. Then he resumes his proper seat, straightening up and refastening the seatbelt.
“That,” I say, “was hard to watch.”
“Shut up.” He swivels his upper body to face me. “After you got stuck in the window, do you remember what you said? You said if I didn’t stop touching you, you were going to kiss me. How is that not crossing the line?”
