“Why do you assume I count you among the ranks at all?” she teased.
“Oh, I see how you are. That’s cold,” he replied, despite his grin.
“Hey, if you wanna stay in the reserves, you have to at least talk to me once in a while, put in a little effort.”
He knew that game—she was pretending to be joking, saying it all light and playful, but she was not joking. Not all the way, at least.
“Hey, I just asked you out for Chinese not that long ago, I never heard back.”
“Aw, yeah. Sorry. That was a date night.”
Ethan rolled his eyes, even though it probably wasn’t even a lie—she probably had gone out with someone.
“What time?”
“What time… what?”
“When should I be there?” he specified.
“Ooh, you changed your mind? Okay, I guess you can still come.”
“You didn’t make other plans in the last ten seconds?”
“I know, I’m such a loser,” she joked. “You can come whenever. Dinner will be done in a little over an hour and the house is clear already, so…”
He told her he would leave in a few minutes, then as he headed into the other room to tell Amanda he was going out, he tried not to feel like a huge asshole.
Given that her dinner invitation had appeared out of the blue, he wasn’t sure what to expect. He wasn’t exactly sure where they stood, and judging from the way she danced around in front of the door after letting him in, she wasn’t either.
“I brought wine,” he said, holding up a small paper bag.
“Good call,” she said with a nod.
“Just in case. I wasn’t sure….”
“No, that’ll be good. I made eggplant parmesan and got stuff ready for salads, but I wasn’t sure how you liked yours. We have French, Italian, and ranch dressing, so if you don’t like one of those, you are out of luck.”
Letting his gaze wander over her, he felt a little underdressed in his jeans and black sweater. Along with a pair of black heels, Willow was wearing the snug black dress with a shoulder-baring, red gauzy top—the one she had posted a while back, before things had become even more complicated between them. It looked even better in person.
Then she turned and gestured for him to follow her into the living room, and he saw that the dress zipped all the way up the back.
His fingers itched to unzip it.
Taking a seat on the couch, she patted the cushion beside her and he followed her cue and sat down, placing the bag with the wine in the floor next to the couch.
“You look very pretty,” he told her, absently reaching out to run a finger along her bare shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a little smile. “So do you.”
“Ugh, I couldn’t find a thing to wear,” he joked. “Everything made me look fat.”
Rolling her eyes in amusement, she said, “Yeah, I bet you have that problem all the time.”
“Constantly,” he murmured, his focus waning as she leaned back against the couch, her hair fanning out behind her, and tilted her head to look up at him with something close to admiration. Smiling slightly, he asked, “What’s that look for?”
“What look?” she asked innocently, her not-so-innocent right hand brushing across his leg to land on the inside of his thigh.
“I thought you were supposed to be mad at me.”