The tips of my ears turned warm. “No, I didn’t. I somehow found a different… method. It’s a long story that I can tell you tomorrow because we’re in… er… a rush now.”
She looked skeptical. “Is it working?”
“Yes,” I confirmed without thinking. Because it was. It so was.
“Then,” Lina pointed out with a smile, “maybe you can afford to take this one night off? Have a little Halloween fun? Fun is good for the mind.”
We started for the exit of the café, and I heard myself say, “You have two tickets, right?”
Lina sighed. “Does that mean you want to bring my cousin?”
I pinned her down with a hard look.
“Are you sure you two are not… doing smoochies? You know you can tell me if you are, right? Even after everything I told you, and even if he’s my cousin and that would be a very gross conversation.”
“We’re not,” I quipped. “And where are you learning all these expressions and euphemisms? They’re either old-school or… weird.”
“I have my ways.” She shrugged. And before getting to the door, she gave me one last glance. “So, Lucas and you are not an item. Right?”
“No,” I answered as casually as I could. “That’s never been in the cards for us, Lina.”
* * *
The first thing I noticed as I walked into the apartment were the two women fussing over Lucas at the stove.
“Hello… everyone?” I greeted the room, getting three head turns—Lucas, our neighbor Adele, and her daughter, Alexia. “This is a surprise. A good one.”
“You’re back,” Lucas said. “Finally.”
Ugh. That finally made me feel so… hopeful, that it almost distracted me from the confident way he strolled in my direction.
When he reached me, he leaned down slightly and said just for my ears, “We have company, as you see. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course,” I answered, taking notice of how close he was standing. How he towered over me. I swallowed. “Adele is always welcome, you know that.”
His brows furrowed momentarily. “Did my cousin give you a hard time?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s just…” Worried. About me, about you, too. “She means well but the whole thing caught her by surprise. I set her straight, and I didn’t… I didn’t really tell her about the experiment.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say dates. Lucas seemed to notice my hesitation, because a thoughtful expression dimmed the lightness in his eyes.
I watched his gaze trail down my body in almost an absentminded way, as if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
“All right,” he said, grabbing the grocery bag I had forgotten I had in my hand. “You’re just in time. I needed to throw these in the pan right now.”
Oh.
That was why he was looking down. That was where the finally came from.
He’d texted me to get some parsley and fresh red chili peppers if I had the chance. He’d been waiting for the ingredients. Not for me.
And that was okay. I didn’t have a reason to be disappointed. I—
Lucas brushed a quick kiss on my cheek, my thoughts coming to a halt at the contact. “Thanks for picking these up,” he said. “Now, come on, dinner will be ready in a minute.”
One moment his lips had been touching my skin, right there, barely an inch from my mouth, and the next, he was striding away leaving me… dumbfounded.
Because he had kissed me. On the cheek.
As friends, I reminded myself. Because in Spain, friends kissed friends on the cheek all the time. Roommates did, too, when friendly.
Trying really hard to ignore the way that tiny patch of skin still tingled, I followed him to the island to chat with the women. “Hi, guys, how are you doing?”
“Hi, Rosie,” Alexia greeted me with eyes that were like her mother’s. “We’re doing okay. Now.”
Adele ignored her daughter’s sideways glance. “This young man here is cooking dinner for us.” She looked over at Lucas, who was back at the stove. “He said he knows what he’s doing and made me promise I’d sit down and stop nagging him about everything.”
“Which you didn’t,” her daughter muttered, placing both hands on Adele’s shoulders and ushering her to a stool. “So, how about you stop hovering around us like an opinionated fly and get off your feet, huh?”
Adele mumbled but took a seat, and a satisfied Alexia returned to Lucas’s side, seemingly engrossed by my roommate’s cooking.