“
Galveston?” he asked in that amazing voice, still surprising me by keeping our conversation going.
“Yeah. Staying at a beach house and everything. Totally slumming it and having a miserable time, you know?” I gave him a real smile that time.
Rip just raised his brows.
“I promised her I would go visit, and she promised she would come up too... What’s that face for?” I surprised myself by laughing. “I don’t believe it either. I’ll get lucky if she comes once. I’m not that delusional.”
I didn’t imagine the way his cheek twitched again, just a little, just enough to keep the smile on my face.
“I’m stuck making my own lunches from now on. I have nobody to watch scary movies with who’s more dramatic than I am screaming at the scary parts. And my house is empty,” I told him, going on a roll.
“Your lunches?” was what he picked up on.
I wasn’t sure how much he’d had to drink that he was asking me so many questions, but I wasn’t going to complain. “I can’t cook to save my life, boss. I thought everyone knew. Baking is the only thing I can handle.”
“You serious?” he asked in a surprised tone.
I nodded.
“For real?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I can’t even make rice in an Instant Pot. It’s either way too dry or it’s mush.” Oh. “An Instant Pot is—”
“I know what it is,” he cut me off.
It was my turn to make a face, but mine was an impressed one. He knew what an Instant Pot was but not a rom-com. Okay. “Sorry.”
He didn’t react to me trying to tease him, instead he asked, “You can’t even make rice in that?”
“Nope.”
“You know there’s instructions online.”
Was he messing with me now? I couldn’t help but watch him a little. How much had he drunk already? “Yeah, I know.”
“And you still screw it up?”
I blinked, soaking up Chatty Cathy over here like a plant that hadn’t seen the sun in too long. “I wouldn’t say I screw it up. It’s more like… you either need to chew a little more or a little less.”
It was his turn to blink.
“It’s a surprise. I like to keep people on their toes.”
If I hadn’t been guessing that he’d had a couple drinks before, what he did next would have confirmed it.
His left cheek twitched. Then his right one did too, and in the single blink of an eye, Lucas Ripley was smiling at me.
Straight white teeth. That not-thin but not-full mouth dark pink and pulled up at the edges. He even had a dimple.
Rip had a freaking dimple.
And I wanted to touch it to make sure it was real.
I couldn’t help but think it was just about the cutest thing I had ever seen, even though I had zero business thinking anything along those lines. But I was smart enough to know that I couldn’t say a single word to mention it; otherwise, it might never come out again.
What I did trust myself to do was gulp down half of my Sprite before saying, “You can make rice, I’m guessing?” If he wanted to talk, we could talk. I was good at talking.
“Uh-huh,” he replied, sounding almost cocky about it.
All I could get myself to do in response was grin at him, and for another five seconds, his dimple—and his smile—responded to me.
”
”