“When is your birthday?” He chuckles. “We need to know these things, I guess.”
“June eleventh. I’m a Gemini, the social butterfly of the zodiac. Take me to a party, and I will shine. They’re also flighty.”
“I’d never describe you as flighty. You’re here for your sister unconditionally; you say unexpected things.”
“Like what?”
His lashes lower. “Like about what beauty really is . . . and what you said about my face.”
I feel a blush rising. Yes, I said that. And I meant it. “It’s the artist in me. You should know that about me in case anyone asks. I draw and paint, mostly flowers, cows and horses, cowboy hats, barns, and churches. I lived in New York, but the things I love to draw are from where I grew up. Maybe I missed home more than I realized. I should have come home sooner and spent more time with Mama.” I sigh. “When’s your birthday?”
“September seventeenth. Virgo. They’re logical, hardworking, and systematic. The bad trait is stubbornness.” He pops an eyebrow at me, and I laugh and bump my shoulder into him.
“That is so you.”
“I know. Lois said your dad passed years ago . . .”
“Heart attack.” I chew on my lips, my head circling back to the afternoon I heard Mama scream, then run outside. She started CPR on my dad while I called the ambulance. I tell Ronan about it. “Every time I hear a lawn mower, I recall that day. He was gone before they got to the hospital.”
A darkness shadows his eyes. “For me, it’s storms. Lightning scares me, like something bad is going to happen to someone. Tell me something else about you.”
“Hmm, I like to cook. My favorite color is yellow.”
“That’s boring as shit.”
I gasp and put a hand over my heart. Dramatically. “Fine. You want juicy? I broke a toilet in Ryan Reynolds’s penthouse, and he doesn’t know it was me.”
He bursts out laughing. “Oh, you have to explain.”
“He was having his party, and Harry Beauchamp and I went—”
“You dated a New York hockey player too? Damn.”
I raise my hands. “Athletes are my weakness.”
“Is that right?” he says dryly. “Let’s see. There’s Andrew, Harry, Zane—who is a dick—then me—”
“Whoa. You and I, we never ‘dated.’”
He dips his head, grimacing. “Yeah, I guess not. Who else?”
I tick them off on my hands. “A baseball guy, another footballer, a basketball star . . . hmm . . . I’m sure there’s a few more in there . . . they kind of run together.”
“You have a type.”
My eyes drift over him, lingering on the sharp line of his jaw, on his blade of a nose, on his sculpted body, toned by years of exercise . . .
I clear my throat. “Back to this Ryan Reynolds party. Celebrities were everywhere. Blake Lively is the sweetest ever, America Ferrera, Jake Gyllenhaal. I tried not to gawk. Then Harry decided to dance with this actress.” I roll my eyes. “One dance. Two. Three. I was pissed and slung back several glasses of champagne, which then led to what I like to call the Bathroom Crisis.”
“Did you pee your pants?”
“No! The first floor had a line—that’s where I met Anna Kendrick, but I was doing the pee dance and couldn’t talk to her. We weren’t supposed to go upstairs, but in my defense, there wasn’t a person there to tell me I couldn’t go past the velvet rope that blocked it off. If they were serious, they’d have had a guard, right? So I huddle crawled up the stairs, and voilà, there in the hallway was this beautiful megabathroom. I’m talking glossy black subway walls, gold faucets, and a glittery chandelier.”
“Lavish.”
I laugh, recalling me describing his home that way. “I finish my business, flush, then the toilet starts to overflow—like there’s a waterfall gushing out on this fancy marble floor. I jiggle the handle, gold, and it falls off in my hands. I take the lid off the toilet to see if I could adjust the inside of the tank. Nope, the toilet is so high tech it’s beyond my mechanical experience. I drop the lid—it made an awful noise. It cracked just a little. I dragged towels out and cleaned up the water, dumped them in the tub, then set the broken lid back on top of the toilet. Then I fixed my hair like everything was okay, slipped back downstairs, grabbed a glass of champagne, told my date to fuck off, and called a cab. I kept the toilet handle. By accident!”