That made me set my mixing bowl down. “Oh no, was it someone you knew?”
“No. And apparently the police suspect fowl play.”
I groaned. Only my grandpa would come upstairs just to tell me that joke. “I love you, but you are the actual worst. You and Dad are the reason I tell dumb jokes.”
“Thank you,” he said brightly, as if I’d complimented him. “Are you going out tonight?”
Just how long had he been listening at the door? “I am.”
“With that Marco fellow?”
This felt very observant for my usually out-of-touch grandfather. “Yes.”
He nodded. “He seemed like a nice young man. I liked him. And it was easy to see that he liked you, too. Well, have fun. Don’t join any harems.”
Huh. I guess he had been listening when I was arguing with my grandma about Marco’s intentions. Maybe he was more aware of the household goings-on than I gave him credit for.
Him saying he liked Marco . . . the last guy my grandpa had approved of had been my dad, so his words seemed significant somehow.
But his declaration that Marco liked me? That was easy to ignore. Not true. A grandfather’s love making him oblivious to reality.
He whistled as he left my doorway, and I refocused my attention on tonight. I tried to figure out what I should wear. Jeans? I probably should have done laundry over the last couple of days. Instead I’d been online trying to look for a new job. That had forced me to spend time updating my résumé, and Minx was my only professional experience. It had been my first job right out of college.
Again, I missed my lab.
But I wondered if another company would hold it against me that I’d only ever worked at one place.
Although I supposed now I also worked for KRT Limited as a consultant.
The contracts had arrived yesterday, and I signed them as, unlike Marco, I did not personally know any lawyers. I knew I could probably find one, but I figured there weren’t many people who were willing to work pro bono on a consulting contract.
I also wanted that money before someone else snatched up my high-shear mixer.
That inspired me to look up the listing again, but when I did, it said the mixer was gone. Someone else had bought it.
My heart deflated like a leaky balloon. That was very disappointing.
I was going to be mourning that mixer for a long time. I had a tendency to do that—to get fixated on something I wanted and if it didn’t go the way I’d planned it in my head, then I didn’t always cope so well with the outcome.
That loss put me into a fairly bad mood. I really did not want to go out tonight, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
I realized that I didn’t know anything that was happening this evening other than Marco and I were supposed to go to Catalina’s. I texted him.
What’s up? When are you getting here?
I didn’t know if he was the kind to show up early or if he wanted to arrive late to make a grand entrance. Not having a timeframe was throwing me off.
He replied quickly, saying he was running late because he was stuck in a meeting that didn’t look like it would be wrapping up soon.
Can you meet me out front of her house in an hour so that we can go in together?
That made sense. Catalina’s home was at the midway point between my grandparents’ house and the office. It would be easier for him to meet me there than drive all the way out here to get me and then drive back.
I supposed that when I imagined this night, it was with him picking me up and the two of us arriving together. That felt more date-like, but I tried not to fixate on that initial plan. I’d meet him there. It was fine.
I put my hair up and found a clean-ish outfit on my armchair. Just jeans and a T-shirt that said BEN SOLO DESERVED BETTER and a dark purple hoodie. I wasn’t really a dressy kind of person, and this felt about as formal as I’d get. Outside of Arwen dresses anyway. Catalina would probably be excited that I’d changed out of the sweatpants, though.
I wondered if Marco would expect me to dress up.
Too bad for him if he did.
I went back to working on my lipstick until it was time to go. It was a quick drive over, and I realized that I didn’t know what Marco’s car looked like. I found an empty spot near Catalina’s house and parked Betty by the curb.
I texted him to let him know that I’d arrived. There wasn’t a reply, and I was trying to figure out how long I should wait.
Your car didn’t spontaneously combust? he finally replied, adding a winking emoji. I’m shocked. I’m at a stoplight—I’ll be there in a few minutes.
Just as he’d said, a few minutes later he arrived and, on Feather Locklear’s life, the man was driving a Porsche.
Some part of me wondered if he’d bought it just to mess with me.
I got out of Betty and walked over to where he’d parked, waving to him. He rolled down the passenger window and very innocently asked me, “Did you want a ride?”
“No thanks,” I told him, and he laughed.
There was a jolt when I leaned down to see him properly. Absence had made my heart forget that the guy I was pretending to date was super attractive, and it was annoying that my body kept leaping with excitement every single time I was around him.
“I probably shouldn’t invite you to join me. I have a policy of not getting in a car with strange women.”
He just thought he was so hilarious, didn’t he? “I’m willing to bet you’ve had a lot of strange women in this car.”
Marco laughed as he reached across to the passenger side and opened the door. “Here, get in. See what you’re missing out on.”
Again, he was hard to resist. I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door behind me. The interior was warm and inviting.
It smelled like him. That delicious, expensive, probably custom-made cologne that would be a sense memory for me for the rest of my life. If I ever smelled this particular combination of . . . light citrus and amber musk and something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I’d always remember him and this moment.
“What do you think?” he asked, and it took me a second to realize he meant the car and not how good he smelled.
“It’s very nice,” I said begrudgingly. All shiny with a dashboard that looked like the gauges actually worked. Seats made out of leather that were still intact. “I think it’s interesting that somehow I intuited you drive a Porsche.”
“Psychic?”
“Or you’re just really playing to type here,” I said.
He smiled again. I took that opportunity to steal a glance at him. Yep, just as handsome as I’d remembered. Especially with that five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. Just a bit of roughness in the overall image of a cool, polished, collected man. He made me feel severely underdressed even though we were wearing literally the same thing—jeans and a T-shirt. It was refreshing to know that he did own something besides suits. But even in his casual wear, he looked like a model who would be paid a fortune just to stand around and look pretty, and I was wearing wrinkled clothes from my bedroom floor.
As if he sensed my thoughts, he said, “You look nice.”
“Wow. You are a good liar.” Even though he’d said it in a way that made me believe him. “And you look just terrible.”