Kiss Me Not (Kiss Me 1)

Also, Netflix.

Preston joined me back in the kitchen and held up a six-pack of beer. “See? Emergency stash.”

“Is that something you always keep in your car? Next to a flashlight and a radio?”

“You have a flashlight and a radio in your car?”

I paused. “No.”

I totally did.

“You do, don’t you?” Preston pulled one can out from the rings and popped the top. “You have an entire emergency kit.”

“You never know when you’re going to get stranded in the dark, in a place with no cell signal, and no civilization for miles. Also, there might be zombies.”

“Do you ever drive to places without cell signal and no civilization?”

“Of course not. I might get lost, though.”

“You could just use GPS.”

“I could get carjacked.”

“They’d spend five minutes with you and run away.” He leaned back against the counter. “All you’d have to do is talk to him about your randy raccoons and hope he isn’t a wildlife enthusiast.”

“If he were, I’d invite him over to see them.” I sniffed and put down my glass. “He’d probably appreciate it.”

“And then burgle you while you pee,” he finished dryly. “And to finally answer your question, no, I don’t always keep beer in my car. I ran by the store during our break earlier and bought some, just in case.”

“You can only drink two, or you can’t drive home.”

His response was to wiggle his eyebrows at me.

“I don’t sleep with people on the second date,” I said firmly. I hadn’t slept with anyone in a while, actually, but that wasn’t the point here. “You can sleep in my spare room, and I’m locking my bedroom door.”

Preston held up his hands. “I’m a gentleman, Halley.”

“Has the gentleman ordered pizza yet?”

“Wow. You are a hard woman to please.”

“Not really. Wine, yoga pants, raccoons, books… I’m fairly simple.”

“Sure.” His tone said he did not believe me. At all. “Pizza?”

“Pepperoni, please. With a cheese-stuffed crust.”

“Fancy,” he muttered. “One pepperoni with a cheese-stuffed crust and one Hawaiian.”

I froze. “You eat pineapple on your pizza?”

He paused, his finger hovering over his phone screen. “Oh, no. You’re a pineapple denier.”

I gasped. “You’re a pineapple warrior!”

“That’s not even a thing!”

“Yes! It is! It’s like those people who march the streets for what they believe in, except yours is pineapple on pizza!” I picked up my glass and shook my head. “This is a disaster. I can’t date someone who eats pineapple on pizza.”

I went out to the back porch. It was still too early for the raccoons, he was right, but it wasn’t for me to sit on the swing and drink wine.

And argue the toss about the atrocity of pineapple on pizza.

“There’s nothing wrong with pineapple on pizza.” Preston joined me, beer in hand, and sat on the other side of the swing.

“There’s nothing right with it.” I shifted so that one of my legs was on the swing. “Preston, pineapple is a fruit.”

“Shut up. It’s fucking not, is it?”

“I don’t think I like your attitude.”

“I don’t think I like your attitude,” he shot back. “Pineapple on pizza is the best thing ever.”

“Fruit does not belong on a pizza!” My voice was slightly shrill at the end. “Fruit is healthy. I’m not eating pizza to be healthy. You wouldn’t put strawberries or banana on a cheese pizza, so why is pineapple okay?”

“It just… is. I don’t know. Ask the Hawaiians!”

“Actually, fun fact, the Hawaiians didn’t create it.”

Preston frowned, the lines in his forehead becoming deep furrows. “Really? Then why is it called the Hawaiian?”

“There’s some Greek Canadian guy who claims he created the ham and pineapple pizza. I think his name is Sam something. He called it the Hawaiian after the name of the pineapple he used.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, French fries weren’t created by the French, either. They came from Belgium.”

“How the fuck do you know this random shit?”

I sipped my wine. “I’m a librarian. There’s an encyclopedia of random shit up here.” I tapped my temple with two fingers. “You overhear things. That was how I learned about the Hawaiian pizza. I heard two high school kids arguing over it.”

“Who won?”

“Nobody. They did a Twitter poll, and it was fifty-fifty. I kicked them out after finding them making out in the paleontology section.”

“Isn’t that the designated make-out aisle in the library?”

“No. T-rex deserves better than that, Preston. He was an icon.”

“He’s also been dead for sixty-five million years. Pretty sure all his fucks dried up when the asteroid hit.”

Fair point.

“I’m just saying. Libraries are for books about kissing—not actual kissing. Unless it’s a proposal.”

Preston’s eyebrows shot up. “A proposal in a library?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Is that insane? I saw someone in McDonald’s propose. It happened on a plane I was on once. If it’s normal at thirty-six-thousand feet, what’s wrong with a library?”

He took a moment before he answered. “That makes total sense. Wow, you really weren’t kidding about how often you’re right.”