“Don’t,” I said.
Kitty looked between the two of us. “Why would she be weird about that?”
I tugged myself from Mia’s grasp and slipped on my shoes, getting as much distance between me and the girls as possible.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mia stretched her legs out on the couch, filling the space I’d left between her and Kitty.
Kitty shoved her sister’s feet away. “Isn’t what obvious?”
“You know what they say, Jo. First comes carpooling, then comes marriage, then comes—”
“Shh! What if he hears you?” How had I suddenly found myself in the middle of a CW teen drama?
“Jo likes Greyson’s dad?” Kitty’s eyes widened. She turned around on the couch and gawked at Alex through the window.
“No. I do notlikeAlex. Not in the way you’re suggesting, anyway.”
Mia smirked. “Then why do you care what he hears?”
I sighed, exasperated. This was very like Mia, who, even as a kid, was clear-eyed and perceptive. Not that she wasrightabout everything, because she wasn’t. But she always knew exactly what buttons to push—enough to get you annoyed but not angry.
“We’re coworkers, and I don’t want him thinking I like him because it could make things weird. We’re just saving money and lowering our carbon footprint.”
Mia nodded seriously. “The couple that cuts emissions together stays together.”
“You’re going to make me late!” I snatched up my purse and keys. “Don’t say anything.”
“Hi,” Alex said, his face lighting up into a smile when I opened the door.
“Hi.” There was that annoying fluttering in my chest again. Pheromonal chest fluttering, of course. Because he smelled good. Not that I could smell him right now. “Sorry I took so long. I didn’t hear you.” I hoped I sounded like a normal human being, and not an almost thirty-year-old who had just been bullied by two teenage girls.
“You have a nice door. I don’t mind standing outside it. You ready?”
“Yup.” I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. Mia and Kitty’s laughter floated through the window.
“Sounds like a party in there.”
“You have no idea.” I followed him to the van, feeling like a girl being picked up for a date in the aforementioned CW teen drama. Though girls in CW teen dramas probably didn’t get picked up for dates in minivans. I watched Alex as he walked ahead of me. He wore a variation of the same outfit he always did: a white tee and slim-fit chef pants. But there was something different about him today.The hair, I realized as he got into the driver’s seat. His tousled waves were pushed off his forehead, slightly neater than usual. They wouldn’t be that way for long, though. His hair had a habit of getting progressively messier as he cooked. By the end of the day he’d look like he’d been standing in tropical storm–force winds.
“You didn’t have to come to the door.”
Alex shrugged. “I didn’t want to honk, and I don’t have your number yet.”
“Right. I can put it in your phone.” The last thing I needed was him seeing I already had his, especially since the contact name was still Hot Guy from the Bar.
We got into the van, and I was relieved to hear the sounds ofunfamiliar electropop. So he was a music person. That would lessen the pressure to fill the silence.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” He took a stainless steel tumbler from the cup holder between us and passed it to me. “Extra cream, extra sugar, right? I think that’s how you make it on the boat.”
I took the coffee from him. Its warmth spread up my hands and through my arms. “Yeah, thanks.”
Alex turned onto South Ocean Boulevard, and I looked out the window, watching Palm Beach pass in a blur. “So a minivan, huh? Interesting choice.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “What? Are you too cool for the van?”
“No, I only meant... I was just wondering.”
He squinted at me a moment, then turned back to the road and nodded. “You are obviously the right amount of cool for the van. Grey calls it the man van, like a man purse, but a van.”
