The thread slips out of my fingers and vanishes in the darkness of the car. “I—I…” I don’t finish my sentence, because I don’t want to lie to Ten.
He heaves a ragged sigh. “That’s what was written up in all the newspapers, so that’s what a lot of people think.”
I rake my hair back. “I’m sorry for being one of those people.”
“You couldn’t have known.” His long fingers loosen on the wheel.
“I couldn’t have known but I also could’venotjumped to any conclusions.” After a quiet minute, I ask, “Did you ever play the piano?”
“When I was a kid.”
“First time I saw your hands—after you knocked me off my bike—I thought you had pianist hands.”
“That’s what crossed your mind?”
A blush creeps over my cheeks.Among other thoughts.
“What other thoughts?”
Oh. Crap.No.Did I say that last part out loud? “Like I would ever tell you.”
He shoots me that stupid crooked grin of his that sends my heart pounding out of control.
“I still can’t believe you crashed into me,” I say.
“I was distracted.”
“By trying to find the fastest route out of Nashville?”
His gaze drops to my lap, to the inches of bare skin, and then he clears his throat and tugs on the collar of his black T-shirt emblazoned with three white block letters:WTF. “Yeah. That.” Beneath the block letters, there’s a small sentence:WHERE’S THE FOOD?
“I like the shirt,” I say.
He looks down at it as though to refresh his memory. “I’d lend it to you, but it would cover up your new skirt.”
I smile. “What a shame that would be.”
The corners of his lips quirk up.
Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine the night ending like this—me in Ten’s car, conversing easily. Where’s the animosity that always crackles between us?
Perhaps in the mailbox…
A vintage Pat Benatar song spills faintly from the speakers. I know it by heart because my father recorded an acoustic version of it on a practice CD I found in a box the day we moved into our new house. I turn up the volume and start singing the lyrics to “We Belong” but then realize I’m singing in front of someone and crush my lips shut.
“Don’t stop,” Ten says, eyes on me.
“And this is why you run into poor girls on their bikes… because you don’t watch the road.”
He returns his gaze to the road. “I’ll watch where I’m going, but only if you keep on singing.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll keep watching you.” As though to prove his point, he angles his face back toward me.
When we almost ram into the back of a white sedan, I open my lips wide. “Stop!”
He brakes. “Do we have a deal?”
