Good Girl (Love Unexpectedly 2)

: “And especially not about IKEA.” I hate IKEA.

“Doesn’t she have a boyfriend that can go with her?” Liz asked.

Ooh, badly played, Airhead. Too obvious in your attempt to determine whether I’m competition.

“She does. But he’s quite frail,” Ben says in a loud whisper. “Very petite hands.”

Annnd another rule broken: Don’t bash Lance so that you can use Parker to blow off your girl toys.

Lance isn’t frail. I mean, maybe my boyfriend’s not as much of a gym rat as Ben, but he’s lean and fit and he sure as hell doesn’t have small hands.

Still, arguing at this point would probably mean extending Liz’s stay, and I’m more than ready to see Airhead on her way back to her dorm room.

I scoop up the last bite of cereal from my bowl as I stand. “We should probably get going,” I say, still chewing. “IKEA gets crazy on Saturdays, and I don’t want to risk them being out of stock on the extra-large shelves.”

“You have that many dolls?” Liz asks, looking torn between being creeped out and feeling completely sorry for me.

“Fifty-seven and counting,” I say, straight-faced. “And actually, Ben, if you’re going to be a while, I might just run upstairs and brush their hair? I noticed last night Polly was starting to develop a tangle.”

Ben drains his coffee, pushes back from the counter, and shakes his head at me. “You poor, sick weirdo.”

Then he turns to Liz, putting his hands on her skinny waist and pulling her forward with an apologetic smile. “You mind if I take a raincheck on breakfast?”

I barely hide the snort. In Ben’s world, raincheck is a synonym for I’m going to intentionally lose your phone number.

In under a minute, Ben is nudging Liz out onto the front porch, and, impressively, she doesn’t even look pissed. I follow them out, just to be annoying, watching as he whispers something in her ear. Her eyes go wide and sympathetic and she gives me an It’s gonna be okay, little buddy smile. She heads toward the sidewalk with a wave.

“What did you just tell her?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee as we watch her leave.

“I told her you were an abandoned orphan and that the only thing your birth mother left you with was a doll named Polly. Hence the sad obsession.”

I shake my head. “You know I’m going to have to rewrite the house rules. And No dolls will so be going on there.”

Liz turns back and gives one last wave. Both Ben and I wave back, and I can’t help myself. “Enjoy your walk of shame!” I call after her, my voice sweet as sugar.

Liz’s head snaps back as though trying to determine if she heard me correctly, but Ben puts a hand over my face and shoves me back into the house before closing the front door.

He absently rubs a hand over his abs as he looks me up and down.

“You should change. You can’t wear your ratty booty shorts and that ugly T-shirt to IKEA.”

“First of all, you can absolutely wear your rattiest and ugliest T-shirts to IKEA. That’s pretty much the IKEA dress code. And second, we’re not going to IKEA. Really, are you getting so comfortable with your lies that they become fact in your mind?”

“We are going to IKEA,” he says, running both hands through his short brown hair before heading toward the stairs.

“For what?” I ask.

“I need a new dresser.”

“What’s wrong with your old dresser?”

“It broke.”

I wrinkle my nose. “How the hell do you break a dresser?”

He shoots me a look over his shoulder and wiggles his eyebrows.

It takes me only seconds before I put the pieces together. “Airhead?” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder at the departed female. “You banged her against the dresser?”