“Wait,” I tell him, hands still locked around his neck. “Don’t pull away yet. She might look back. We should make sure our… denouement is convincing, too.”
“Good point.” He meets my eyes, his mouth tightening in agrimace. “Also, before we do, I have a minor problem to deescalate.”
“What problem—” My mouth clamps shut when Alex shifts, I think, in an attempt to draw his hips away from mine. All it does is make even clearer, without my body pressed against his, that his “minor” problem is not so minor.
Heat floods my cheeks. “Ah. Right.”
“I need you to say something really unsexy right now,” he tells me.
“Okay. Sure.” I rack my brain, then meet his eyes. “Did you pack any Gas-X? I forgot to take my lactase enzyme before I went to town on those olive and cheddar kebabs, and man, those cubes give me the toots.”
Alex snorts, then drops his head to my shoulder on a pained groan. “Didn’t work.”
“What?” I am baffled. “Alex, lactose-intolerance-induced gas isveryunsexy.”
“But your toots are weirdly endearing? They sound like a tiny trumpet.”
I glare up at him. “You know the rule. If I ever toot, no I didn’t.”
“Right.” He schools his expression. “Of course.”
“Daddy! Thea!” Mia barrels into our legs and smiles up at us. “Group hug!”
Alex’s eyes meet mine. “Well.Thatworked.”
I draw my body back from his immediately and settle myself into a respectable friend-hug posture. It’s one thing for Mia to see Alex and me embrace as friends. It’s another thing for her to see us tangled around each other like we just were. “I thought you had an eye on her,” I whisper.
“Idid.” He scoops Mia up onto his hip and she throws her arms around our necks, squeezing tight. Alex tips his head away from her to my far side and whispers, “But then someone asked me to grope her butt and started talking about the sensuality of the Regency era waltz.”
I sigh as I wrap my arm around Mia and squeeze her back. “I should have seen it coming. The waltz always leads to trouble.”
CHAPTER 10THEN
July 25, two summers ago
It’s a breezy Friday afternoon, I’m already off work, my apartment is no longer a disaster zone of moving boxes and partially assembled bookcases, and Tessa Dare’s deliciously witty banter between the grumpy reclusive duke and the feisty wallflower who’s crashed his castle is a much-needed distraction while I wait for Lauren to show up.
I haven’t seen Lauren since our lunch at Luna’s, and I haven’t heard from her since she texted me on Sunday, asking if we could change her visit from Tacos and Tequilas Tuesday to Fried Food and French Wine Friday.
While I was suspicious last week at Luna’s, I’m now sure something is wrong.
“No loitering,” a gruff voice says. “It’s right there, on the sign.”
I peer up from my perch on my apartment’s front steps, resting my finger on the line I was reading to mark my place. A smilebreaks across my face. I recognize the owner of that gruff voice. “Mr. Fleischer, hi!”
Mr. Maxwell Fleischer, a regular at The Bookshop, is by far the crankiest man I have ever met. He’s also my favorite. I’ve read too many books featuring lovable elderly grumps with prickly exteriors to take his surliness to heart.
He narrows his eyes at me, leaning heavily on a metal utility cart filled with groceries.
“It’s Thea,” I remind him. “From The Bookshop?”
“I know who you are,” he grumbles. “What I don’t know is why you’re loitering on my stoop.”
I blink. “Wait, you live here?”
“No,” he says flatly. “I just schlepped all my groceries here and called it ‘my stoop’ for shits and giggles.Yes, I live here.”
“So do I!” I peer over my shoulder at the building’s multi-unit mailbox. “Soyou’reunit two, ‘M.F. NO SOLICITING!’ I’m unit three, Theadora Meyer.” I turn back and smile at him. “Right above you.”
