“I’d really rather not do that. I think it may be better if you leave and go to the U of A.”

“The college?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to see if you can find a physicist there and ask him how long it will be before time travel is invented. Because I really would like to travel back in time to when this house was being built so I could have stopped the builders from putting up a wall here, and then I would travel back to right now and instead of being face-planted against the wall, it would have looked like I was showing off some really sweet dance moves in a long hallway.”

Vince snorted in my ear, which I found to be rather gross, and yet was okay with him doing it anyway. He turned me around in his arms, and even though I tried to avoid looking at him, he wasn’t having any of it. He gripped my chin and forced me to look up, inspecting my nose and cheek. They throbbed a bit, and I felt my face heat up under his careful gaze. I was proud of the fact there were no tears in my eyes, even though such a facial smash deserved them. I was manly, after all, I reminded myself; manly men didn’t cry after getting tripped by their two-legged dog and running into a wall with their face.

Vince poked my cheek. “Ow!” I snapped at him.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t look like it’s broken. Nose, either. Probably will get a black eye, though.”

“Oh, thank you, Dr. Taylor,” I said, rolling my eyes.

He grinned at me, dimples exploding like fireworks. “Did you notice how I didn’t laugh, even though it was pretty funny?”

I glared at him and then heard a choking sound. I looked over to where Sandy stood in the middle of the living room. He had his hand over his mouth, squeezing tightly, tears streaming down his face as his body shook.

I stepped away from Vince and his hands fell to his sides. I pointed at Sandy, who I was pretty sure was going to burst at any moment. “You can go home now,” I scolded.

He nodded once and grabbed his keys off the coffee table. He almost made it completely out my door before he couldn’t hold it in anymore and starting howling with laughter, the sound ringing back to us as he closed the door.

“This can’t possibly be a good way to start things,” I muttered.

Chapter 10

I Hate Waiters Named Santiago and I Really Hate YouTube

VINCE tried to say we could just stay in, but I told him that it was probably a good idea if we went out, given that I wanted to pretend Wheels was a soccer ball and I needed to score a basket. Vince then told me that it was a soccer goal and not a basket and that’s why those announcers always screamed, “Goooooooaaaaaalllllll!” I cocked an eyebrow at him and he just rolled his eyes at me.

There was silence in the car that was almost uncomfortable, but I was distracted by the fact that my face was slightly throbbing. I wondered if I would actually get a black eye or not and if it would be believable if I told people in the office on Monday that it was from the fight I’d gotten in over the weekend, where I took on a gang on the south side with nothing but my fists.

“Don’t keep touching it,” Vince told me as he drove. “You’re going to make it worse if you keep poking your face.”

“I’m making sure I don’t have nerve damage,” I said, poking myself again, feeling the burn. “I may have smashed all my nerves to death, and I want to make sure I don’t get droopy-eye.”

“It’s going to bruise,” he warned.

“Maybe it’s my penance for hurting you. Like some kind of divine retribution for causing pain and misery and giving you two days off from work in a row where you did nothing but text me the whole time.”

“You liked it when I texted you,” he said, sure of himself.

“It was pretty annoying,” I said.

“Then why’d you keep responding?”

I poked my cheek instead of answering him. It hurt. A lot.

Instead of arguing with me further, he took my poking hand in his and held it, intertwining our fingers together, effectively shutting me up, an action I thought impossible. I suppose I could have used my other hand to poke my face, but it didn’t seem all that important anymore.

And since I wasn’t allowed to distract myself by poking my war wounds, I began to get nervous again, realizing not only was I on the date I’d been dreading/hoping for, but he was already holding my hand. This immediately caused me to start sweating, which made my hand clammy, and I was pretty sure that Vince was getting drenched, but he held on anyway, regardless of the fact that my body was leaking all over him, and not in the good way.

He took me down to Fourth Avenue, near where the gay bar was, and I let myself reminisce that this was where we’d first laid eyes on each other… six days prior. I rolled my eyes at my own mushiness, which hurt my cheek quite a bit. Then I started to sweat some more.

He parked near a little street café called Poco’s and asked if it was all right. I’d never been there before. It looked cute and I hadn’t heard any news stories of rats being found in the food, so I figured it would be okay. I didn’t share any of those thoughts, though. I just smiled widely and said this was one of my favorite places ever. I felt bad that I was building the beginning of our relationship on lies, but I figured it was just about a restaurant, so Jesus would forgive me. Then I got stuck on the word relationship and blanched at my audacity to think such a thing, which caused my hands to sweat even more. I’m pretty sure anyone walking by me would have thought I’d just climbed out of a pool. Luckily, Vince had dropped my han

Tags: T.J. Klune At First Sight Romance
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