“I am not short.” I pick up the white box on the seat as I slide into the car.
“Of course not.” H
is smirk grows wider. “You’re just vertically challenged.”
He closes the door on me before I can come up with a comeback and though I have no plans to let his comments go, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate them. As long as he’s not being an ass, I’ve always been a sucker for a guy who can give as good as he gets.
I still haven’t thought of a retort when he slides behind the wheel, but that’s probably because I was distracted by the sight of his very fine ass in his very worn jeans as he crossed in front of the car. No wonder he’s been People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive three times in the last decade. Now that I’ve seen him in person, I feel like he got gypped the other seven years. Seriously. None of the Chrises—Evans, Pratt, or even Hemsworth—have anything on this guy.
I try to hand him the box, but he just shakes his head and grins. “That’s for you.”
“For me?” I sound as incredulous as I feel. “You bought me a present?”
“Don’t get too excited. It’s not diamonds.”
“I never thought it was.” I eye the box suspiciously. “So what is it?”
“Why don’t you open it and find out?”
Warily, I do as he asks. And then I crack up when I see what’s inside. “You bought me cupcakes?”
“I bought you chocolate cupcakes.”
“Why?” I already know the answer, but I want to hear him say it.
“Because it seemed a little late for Froot Loops and a little early for tequila.” He grins as the engine roars to life. I don’t know what else to say except “Thank you.”
He shakes his head like it’s nothing. And maybe, to him, it is. But still I feel myself softening even more.
“So, where to?” he asks.
“I thought we’d start in Del Mar, then move on to Coronado before ending up in La Jolla this evening, if that’s okay with you.” I want to tell him about the house I found, but I don’t want to unduly bias him against any of the other houses we’re going to see today. There are quite a few really nice homes on my list and I think he could be happy in a number of them. The fact that the last house is so perfectly my dream home—with the exception of its proximity to the water, of course—doesn’t mean that it’s going to be Hunter’s.
“This evening?” He raises a brow as he pulls smoothly into traffic. “How many houses are you planning to take me to?”
“We’ve got appointments at eleven.”
“Eleven? Seriously?”
“Yep. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours scouring every listing in San Diego that meets your specifications.”
“And there were only eleven?”
“Proximity to the ocean is a killer, especially if you don’t want a tacky, nouveau-riche McMansion—”
“I don’t,” he tells me firmly.
“I know. Hence the twenty-four hour search. But to answer your question, no. There were more like forty or fifty that could meet your specifications. Then I went through and ranked them based on my knowledge of you and—I admit—my own personal preference. We’re on the first tier today. If you don’t find anything you like, then I’ll take your feedback and go through the rest of them and come up with a new list for later this week—or whenever you’ve got time to go house hunting again,” I add hastily.
“If we don’t find something today, I’ll make time.” He says it with a grim determination that makes my radar go off all over again. There’s a story here and it’s definitely not that of a celebrity searching for his latest pleasure palace.
Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, trying to see what I want to see now that I’m going to benefit greatly from having him as my very first client. But I don’t think so. There’s more to Hunter Browning than the brilliant quarterback/hardcore party boy that the media takes such delight in reporting on.
“Let’s think positive,” I tell him as we cruise onto the 805. “Maybe you’ll fall in love with the first house we see.”
Chapter 12
Hunter