“What did you do to it?”
“I put in some speakers and tires and fixed the motor so he can maximize the power when he races.”
Waverly frowned. “And how old is he?”
“Thirty, like me, almost thirty-one.”
“Ah,” Waverly drawled, “so he’s old.”
Dominic nodded. “Oh, you got jokes?”
“I’m known to say something funny a time or two,” Waverly told him with a laugh. “So did it take two weeks to deliver a car?”
“Wait until you meet Aamir at our wedding,” Dominic said. “You’ll understand.”
Waverly’s heart surged again. She knew he was teasing about the marriage, but hearing someone making plans for something other than beauty pageants felt good...human, almost. Speaking of being human, Waverly reached for a third slice of pizza. “How did you end up with friends overseas?”
“College,” he answered. “Stanford, to be exact.?
??
“Oh, that’s too interesting.” Waverly bit her bottom lip for a half second. Here she was, barely a full semester under her belt with a tarnished tiara, while he was highly educated and worldly. “I hear those Ivy League schools are stuck-up.”
“Stanford is not Ivy League,” Dominic countered. He held out his muscular arm. “Would a guy tatted like me get into an Ivy League school?”
“How would I know?” Waverly shrugged. “Maybe as a graduation treat, you’d got yourself a few tattoos.”
“I promise you, I had tattoos before I started college.”
Waverly didn’t know why this was an issue. Dominic stood up, reaching for his phone in his back pocket. “Don’t try to show me some Photoshopped version of yourself.”
“What do you know about Photoshopping?” he asked.
A little too much these days, Waverly thought to herself.
“I say we make a wager of this,” Dominic began. “If I can prove you wrong, you have to do something with me.”
Considering what they almost did, sure. Waverly grinned. “Deal.”
“Don’t go back on a promise, now.”
Waverly rolled her eyes and held out her hand. “Man, if you don’t show me this picture...”
Playfully Dominic held the phone in the air and out of her reach. Now would be the great time for her to come up with her part in the wager when Dominic failed to provide the photograph. Wasn’t he the prize, though? Waverly licked her lips in anticipation.
“Bam,” Dominic said after his thumb stopped scrolling across the screen. He shoved the phone close to her face.
Waverly took a step backward to adjust what she saw. There, surrounded by a set of twin preteen boys flexing their nonexistent muscles and a young girl, draped in an oversize green graduation gown, was a young Dominic. His hair was cut in a high top fade, too high for his graduation cap, which he held in one hand. He wore a pair of jeans with holes at the knees and a muscle shirt. Dark tattoos covered his biceps. Considering how buff he was now compared to then, Waverly had to concede.
“This is your high school graduation. How old do you have to be to get a tattoo?”
“Sixteen with your parents’ approval. My mom came with me,” Dominic said. “Ever been around someone with tattoos?”
Waverly sighed. “My first serious boyfriend had them. But since he was older, I assumed.”
“Okay,” Dominic said, blowing out a sigh in the universal manner of changing the subject. “I’ve proven you wrong and now it’s time to pay up.”
Excitement flashed within her. A date? The movies? “Sure,” Waverly replied in an even-keeled tone.