A petulant part of Lexi wants to say,Why? Why should I? You’re my mortal enemy.But even if he’s trying to make her do something she doesn’t want to do, it seems like he is at least being nice about it. So she refrains.
‘You really don’t have to drive me, though. I live, like, two blocks that way.’ Lexi points in the vague direction of the town house she shares with Erin.
Sam looks suspicious. ‘Like, actually two blocks? Or are you exaggerating because you just want to get rid of me?’
‘I would never...’ Lexi must have hit her head hard, because she was about to say she would never want to get rid of him. Which is ridiculous. Things at the bookshop would be a lot less stressful if they got rid of him, for a start. ‘I would never exaggerate,’ she says instead.
‘What, like never ever in a million years?’
He is baiting her.
‘I see what you did there,’ she says, making sure he knows she knows. ‘It’s three and a half blocks. I’ll be okay. But also, I have to get back to work.’
Sam shakes his head, and touches Lexi’s arm to get her to look at him. (It feels nice. Warm.) ‘Look at me,’ he says, when it doesn’t work.
She doesn’t want to. He’s her mortal enemy. But something in his voice makes her do what he asks. And she has to admit his eyes are nice. Like emeralds, or like ocean depths.
‘Your eyes are very green,’ she tells him.
‘Thank you?’ He sounds like he’s not sure if this is a compliment. Which is a good thing. Keeping your enemies close may be good, but keeping them on their toes is even better.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ Lexi says. ‘You’re just trying to make me go home so I can’t do any bookshop work and you can put me out of business.’
‘Okay, first of all, I’m not trying to put you out of business.’
‘You’re not?’
He shakes his head and she opens her mouth to argue further, but he bulldozes past her. ‘And I’m not going to fight about that with you right now.’
Good: an argument to look forward to. Lexi can start planning her witty ripostes in advance. Always helpful when you get the chance to do that.
‘But, secondly, you’re hurt, and I want to make sure you’re okay.’
Lexi narrows her eyes, which somehow intensifies her headache. ‘You’re being a good guy,’ she says, like a revelation. She feels herself grinning. Her head feels heavy. She rests it on his shoulder, which feels much better. It’s nice. She could close her eyes and—
‘I’m doing the thing that any decent person would do in this scenario,’ he says softly, his breath brushing her face.
‘You’re not a decent person, though.’ She says it before she remembers that bantering isn’t really a thing in the US, not really a form of flirting or even expressing friendship. She says it, also, not totally sure if she means it. Because Lexi thought she hated him, but everything is suddenly blurry and confusing.
‘You hit your head pretty hard, so I’m ging to assume you don’t know what you’re saying.’ She can hear a smile in his voice somehow. She wishes she could turn her head to look at him, but everything hurts. ‘Your eyes are open, though, right?’
‘Yes,’ she lies.
‘And you’d never lie in a million years, right?’
Lexi forces her eyes open. The light hurts them a little. ‘Not in a hundred billion years.’
‘Good.’ Sam’s voice vibrates through Lexi’s bones, like they’re one person. It’s nice. She could get used to it.
But wait, no. Mortal enemies! Bad thoughts!
Chapter Thirteen
It takes longer than you might think to walk three and a half blocks. Especially when the person you’re with has a firm grip of you, his arm around your waist, while his laughably small dog trots along beside you, and possibly you’re walking a little slower than strictly necessary because you’re enjoying his warm hand a little bit too much and you don’t want him to let go.
‘Is anyone home in the daytime at your place? To look after you?’
Lexi finds herself wishing she could say no. Probably not just for his company? No, she’d have to have hit her head pretty hard to think that. Probably it’s just so that he’d have to stay with her, losing a valuable day of plotting his takeover of DC’s literary world, which would mean the plan was working. But Erin works from home most days– her government job is one of the few where the powers that be took note of their workers’ preferences to come into the office once or twice a month and thought,Okay, we’ll push it to once or twice a week, but otherwise we’ll let these nerds be. Not, of course, that Sam would stay anyway. That would be ridiculous.
