“Oh, so that’s it,” I say, like I’m teasing. “You’re here to find out just how not your person I am?”
She gives me a screwy little smirk that makes me want to fuck her.
“I haven’t made a lemon cake in years,” I tell her. “I don’t even think I could now. How about that?”
Her eyes widen, like she’s stunned and saddened by this news from me. “Why not?”
I shrug. It’s because I couldn’t stomach them after all the times I made them that year for her.
“Remember how I used to…skateboard?” I ask, twisting my face as I reach for something I no longer do now.
She nods, solemn.
“No more skateboarding.”
“Oh.” There’s a little notch between her dark brows. “Do you still…read?”
“Do whales still swim?”
She grins, showing me that little dimple again. “I don’t know,” she says. “I guess they do. They sort of float.”
“They swim. They have fins, you know.”
“If their fins failed, I bet they would still float. Lots of padding.”
“Are you calling whales fat?” I arch a brow.
“They’re supposed to be fat. They’re whales!”
I can’t help giving her a quick grin. “I do read, yes. If I recall, you were impressed by that the first go ’round.”
“I wasn’t impressed,” she says. “I was happy.”
“And if someone doesn’t read? What if I only watched TV?”
“It’d be less fun to chat about things.”
“What are you reading these days, Ms.—”
“Don’t do it!”
“I was going to say O’Hara.” I grin over my shoulder as I grab some plates down from the cabinet.
She shakes her head. She’s hugging herself, but I’m not sure she notices she is. “I’m reading a lot of things,” she says softly. “Memoirs, nonfiction—basically every memoir by anyone who seems even remotely interesting. I read mysteries. Thrillers—mostly women’s fiction. And some romance.”
I turn around, leaning back against the counter so I can face her. “Romance, huh?”
“If I recall, you yourself have read some Anne Rice smut.”
I can’t help smiling at that memory. “Checked it out at the library. Pretty damn embarrassing.”
“But worth it?”
“Oh yeah. Absolutely worth it.”
“What do you read?” she asks as I set our pizza slices on twin plates.
I carry them over to the table, scooping up the gun inside my ball cap and setting it atop a nearby shelf. “I read a bunch of different stuff.”
I pull a chair out for her and add, “Like you.”
“What was the last book you read?” she asks as she takes a seat at my small table.
“I’m reading a book called Less.” I set the dessert plates beside her.
“Less?” Her brown eyes flicker up toward me. “Like…as in Arthur Less?”
I suck air in through my nose as I turn back toward the kitchen to grab glasses for the cider. “That’s his name.”
“I read that last month. Did you like it? Did you like him?”
“Well…yeah.” I flash a quick grin. “Isn’t that sort of the point?”
“What do you mean?”
I twist the top off the cider, hesitating before I pour some in a glass. “Doesn’t the author want to make us like him?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think they don’t.”
I shrug. “I almost always like them.”
“Them being…any lead in a book?”
I nod, sitting down across from her, sliding her glass across the table. I could sit beside her, but I want to see her hand around the glass, her throat as she swallows.
“They’re usually endearing.”
She takes a bite of her pizza, and I do the same. There’s this moment where I realize this is fucking crazy—that she came back over here, given who she is and who I am—but I do what I can to keep the conversation moving.
“I like that the writer took a stab at writing about another writer. I don’t think I’d do that.”
“If you were a writer?”
I nod. “Seems like you could fuck that up.”
“I feel like writing about what you know makes sense.”
I shrug. I would never want to write about what I know; maybe that’s the problem.
“I’m surprised you’re reading that book.”
I give her a little smile that’s not a smile, because I’m dreading hearing what she thinks I would read. “What would you expect?”
“I guess what you used to say you read. Like Stephen King. More genre fiction.”
“I think Mr. King defies the genres, don’t you?”
A funny look passes over her face—amusement.
“What, you disagree?” I smile.
“You called him Mr. King, like this is an article in the New York Times.”
“Our local rag, you mean?” I tilt my head, looking skeptical.
She gives a soft snort, then has another bite of pizza.
“Is this not what you expected?” I ask, amused by how shy she seems.
“I don’t know.” She frowns down at her plate before she looks briefly at me—and she is definitely shy. “I thought you wouldn’t have time to read.”
“Well, that’s true. I do have a rockin’ social life.”
“Do you?”
I laugh. “No. I read and I watch…” I trail off when I realize this all might sound lame or—so much worse—sad.