Pretend You're Mine (Inked Hearts 3)

“Do you have chocolate chip pancakes?” she asks.

“It’s not on the menu, but I’m sure I can make it happen,” he says.

“Great. We’ll take an order. Thank you.” She smiles you are eating, dammit.

I wait for the server to leave. “Do chocolate chip pancakes have any nutritional value?”

“Flour and eggs?”

“I might as well pour the sugar straight into my coffee.”

“Fine. Don’t eat them. Just look at them.” She takes a long sip of her coffee. Lets out a soft moan. “Mmm. I see the merits to filling up on this.”

“Right?”

“Ryan said you haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” It sounds right, but the last twenty-four hours are a blur of hurt and rejection. I really can’t remember.

The server refills our coffee and drops off a new cup of cream.

Iris shoots him a sweet smile. She fixes her coffee and takes a small sip. “

You want to talk about it yet?”

“Maybe.” My java is a caramel color, plenty sweet and creamy, but nothing compared to Iris’s half sugar and milk, half coffee concoction. “I guess it’s simple. I told him I loved him and he looked at me like I ripped his heart out.”

“You did.”

“Is it really asking too much, wanting him to love me back?”

“It’s been two weeks.”

I ignore her reasonable statement.

“You were okay with it then.”

“It’s different now.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

“Ryan has always been—”

“Hurt?”

She nods. “You knew he was hung up on his ex.”

“Yeah. But he’s not. Not anymore. At least, that’s what he says.”

Her eyes go wide. “He’s not?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He just asked me to pick you up. Offered to pay for our breakfast.”

“Of course.” He’s considerate about cushioning the blow of his rejection.