He didn’t qualify for the friends and family discount.
“No, I’m good on both exfoliant and self-tanner,” he told me.
The only other reason that came to mind as to why a guy this good looking would want to take me out was, “You don’t have any homework you want me to do, do you?”
He must have been able to hear my serious tone, because I saw the way he pressed his lips together, as if he were trying not to laugh. “I’m twenty-nine years old. I don’t have homework.”
“But why do you want me to come eat with you?” It couldn’t just be the pleasure of my company.
“I’ll tell you that at lunch.”
“I don’t go to lunch with strange men.” Even though I kind of knew him already.
He called my bluff. “I’m not a stranger. Last night you confided in me that you’re in love with my brother. Your deepest, darkest secret. If that doesn’t make us friends, I don’t know what will.”
“I told you that under duress!” I protested.
“From me?”
“No, from the bottle of champagne!”
He smiled at that. “Regardless, I think you’ll find what I have to say intriguing.”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of feeling like I’m stuck in a battle with the second law of thermodynamics today.” I noticed that intelligent men tended to back down once I used a term they were unfamiliar with.
“Then let’s get you to stop from falling into entropy and make you not be an isolated system by coming out with me.” At that, I gawked at him, fully in shock. One, how did Marco Kimball know about the laws of thermodynamics well enough to throw them back at me and two, why was he pushing this so hard? I obviously wasn’t interested.
I mean, I was interested in what he had to say. Just not in him as a person. Or a potential romantic partner.
“But if I were you,” he continued, totally oblivious to my train of thought, “I’d be more worried about Newton’s first law of motion. A body at rest staying at rest and all that.”
“You are really going for the hard sell here.” What with his quoting science at me.
“I am. And I’ll explain everything.” His voice was edged with exasperation—not enough to make me think he was really unhappy, but it was probably because women didn’t generally turn him down.
I wanted to tell him no. Maybe I’d even be the first woman to ever do that. I wished I could say that I wasn’t interested in his mystery box. But my curiosity had always been a driving force in my life, and it was hard to resist the invitation.
“I’m not really dressed up to go anywhere.” I could only imagine the kind of restaurants Marco Kimball frequented.
“Okay. Tell you what,” he said. “I drove your car here. I’ll call a rideshare and meet you at the restaurant in an hour. If you want to come, do, and if you don’t, well, it was nice having met you.”
“You brought my car?”
He handed me my keys, and I was careful to make sure that no part of him touched any part of me. If I got another electrical shock like the last one, it was going to stop my heart. Cardiac Arrest City, population me.
“Yes. Why do you say it like that?”
“Because it’s suspiciously nice,” I said.
“Or it’s just regular nice.”
“You’re too good looking to be that nice.” I still felt like he was up to something major, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t know what it was. Why was he making me go out in public to find out?
Catalina was right, and hot guys were the worst.
Especially ones who get engaged to women they’ve only known for two months, that inner anti-Craig voice said.
I ignored it, but it did make me think that whatever Marco had to say was about Craig, and that pushed me to want to say yes.
He didn’t respond to my jab at his niceness and instead said, “Here. I’ll text you the address of the restaurant.” He took out his phone, and I felt my own phone buzz in response.
“How do you have my number?” I asked.
“You gave it to me last night.”
I pulled my cell from my pocket and saw that I had added him to my phone as “Hot Bathroom Guy.” Lovely. Too drunk to remember his name, but not so drunk that I’d forgotten where I’d met him or how he looked. “Why didn’t you just call me instead of coming over?”
“And miss the orange face and glitter?” When he saw that I wasn’t laughing, he shifted gears. “I thought this was more of an in-person situation. I also thought you’d say no if I asked over the phone.”
“I might still say no.”
“You might,” he agreed, but his tone indicated that he thought I wouldn’t.
While I stood there, trying to decide what to do, I heard the front door shut, the birds call out, and then my grandmother’s voice.
Fan-freaking-tastic. That was all I needed. Growing up, there had been a rule that I couldn’t have a boy in my bedroom. I didn’t know if that rule was still in effect. I’d never had an occasion before to test it.
“You have to go. And if we get downstairs and anybody I’m related to tries to invite you to dinner tonight, your answer is no. As Admiral Ackbar says—”
“It’s a trap?” he finished, and again that feeling from earlier returned, of being understood.
“My grandmother thinks she can cook, but what she makes is like what Satan would serve in hell if he was trying to torture people. And I tell you this because you do seem like a reasonably nice man, and I don’t think anyone should be subjected to it. And my grandfather thinks that it’s rude not to eat the food set in front of you, so you’ll be stuck eating it out of politeness. I have an iron stomach from many years of that kind of cuisine torture. The second I turned sixteen, I did my best to never be home during dinnertime again.”
“That was a pretty long explanation for ‘don’t eat dinner here.’”
“Brevity has never been my strong point. Come on.”
I didn’t really want to walk him to the door. He’d found his own way upstairs; he could do the same going out. But I couldn’t risk a Grandma confrontation. I hoped she would stay in her study and we’d make a clean getaway.
“Don’t step on that one.” I pointed at the third stair. “It creaks, and I’d like to sneak you past my quasi–parental units. The questions will be endless.”
“It’s nice that you have people who care about you.”
The way he said that was so heartbreaking, so familiar, that I stumbled on the last step. Marco reached out and grabbed me, keeping me upright. The electricity returned, slamming into me and shorting out my breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. “You can, um, let go.”
He released his hand in surprise, like he’d forgotten it was there. I didn’t know that I’d be able to forget, given that I was pretty sure his light handprint had made a permanent electricity-based imprint on my upper arm.
Residual alcohol effects, I reminded myself. It didn’t mean anything.
I had just put my hand on the front doorknob, rejoicing in my ability to get him out of the house without being caught, when my grandpa came strolling down the hallway toward the door. He beamed at both of us and said to Marco, “I see you found her okay.”