Wait. What? We had been talking about Rip being appreciative of me. Not being attracted to me! “He’s not—”
“Unless he’s blind,” Banks interrupted, “he is. Quick question, were you two sexting yesterday? Around ten a.m.?”
My cheeks heated. “More like hate texting.”
“Hate texting.” He shrugged. “Sexting.” Another shrug. “It’s really the same thing, you know that, right?”
I rolled my eyes despite my sudden excitement that Banks somehow knew that Rip and I had been texting. And having fun while doing it. Had Banks walked in on Rip staring at his phone? Had Rip told him he was enjoying our conversation?
Ugh, now I was daydreaming again about the guy who thought I had the maturity of a preschooler. Great.
“Actually we weren’t even hate texting,” I announced. “It was more like threat texting.”
“He was smiling,” Banks said triumphantly. “Down at his phone, with a giant grin on his face that I haven’t seen in forever. Plus, he’s not really a texter, comes across as a giant jackass when he uses the written word, doesn’t know how to cut things up with an emoji or funny meme. Hell, he even uses proper grammar; would it kill him to use a contraction?”
“And corrects others’ grammar, don’t forget that.” But even as I said it, my heart was lodged in my throat, my pulse quickening. Was it true? Could Rip actually… like me?
The last thing I needed was an awkward situation between me and Rip, though. I immediately deflated. Getting my hopes up was so not the way to make things less awkward with the guy I was raising two kids with.
This conversation with Banks was just confusing me even more. I didn’t want Banks to be right. I didn’t want to hope. All hope did was make me think there was a chance something was there, a something I’d always wanted, and I wasn’t rested enough or emotionally stable enough right now to take rejection from the man who was sleeping just down the hall from me.
I shook my head as if to say, No, no, I can’t have this conversation.
Banks rested a hand on mine. “Nope, no giving up before we even start plotting world domination or, you know, Rip domination. Now, steak or Italian?”
The guy was exhausting; beautiful, but exhausting. “Why?”
“Answer the question.”
“Italian?”
“Great, I’ll pick you up around nine. Bedtime is around eight thirty, correct?”
“Wait, what do you mean you’re picking me up?” I asked, suddenly confused.
“We’re going to start dating.” He winked. “But don’t worry. I won’t fall in love with you. It’s really hard for guys like me to catch feelings.”
“Wh-why are we dating again?” My head spun along with the room. How would pretending to date Banks even work?
Rip would probably shove me out the door and tell me to have a good time just to get me out of the house—OK, maybe not that harsh, but he wouldn’t be jealous; he’d have to actually like me to be jealous. So he’d smiled at our text conversation. So what? I refused to believe that meant he wanted to date me and would be mad if Banks did. I wasn’t stupid.
Banks winked. “Because guys like Rip react to one thing and one thing only.” He got up and started walking toward the door before calling over his shoulder, “Competition.”
I fell back against my chair. “But—”
“Wear black. See you later, beautiful.”
“What the heck just happened?” I whispered to myself. At least I’d get Italian out of the deal and dinner with a hot guy, so really there was no loss there, but his plan just seemed like a way to get me out to dinner or maybe even get in my pants.
Huh, there was a thought.
Sex.
With a guy who actually liked me, or at least seemed to.
If Banks thought it would work, it was either one or the other: he wanted to go out with me, which was great, or he truly knew Rip well enough that he thought this would catch his attention.
Hope: there it was again.