Her voice sounded odd; Jake looked at her, saw the sadness deep within him reflected back in her eyes, and knew she was thinking of her father. “I miss him a lot,” he said solemnly.
They sat just looking at one another for a long moment, until Robin’s fair skin colored an appealing shade of pink, and she abruptly attacked the second hot dog, scraping the condiments from the meat.
“Wait,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I can’t watch you do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Destroy a perfectly good hotdog. Eat it right.”
“I am eating it right!”
“No, you’re not, you’re eating it like a teacake.” Jake impulsively grabbed her wrist with one hand, then reached for the dog with his other. “This is how you eat a hotdog,” he said firmly, and let go her wrist, swiped up the catsup bottle, and poured a respectable pile onto the dog. Then he shoved one end in his mouth, took a bite, and put the rest of the dog back on her plate. “Try it. You’ll like it.”
“No!” she exclaimed, looking at her plate in horror.
“Come on—”
“It’s gross.”
“Chicken.”
“What? What did you say?” she gasped, her brows forming a sharp V. “Did you just call me a chicken?”
“Bok bok bok—”
It worked. She picked up the dog so fast he almost didn’t see it. She put the dog to her lips, stretched her mouth open to carefully accommodate it, and slowly slid it between her teeth. Her eyes rounded. “Umm,” she said.
Jake thought he was going to faint, right then and there.
Robin chewed slowly and thoughtfully as if tasting meat for the first time ever, while Jake squirmed and silently begged her to take another bite. She swallowed, looked at him in great surprise. “Not bad!” she admitted, and put the dog to her mouth again in such an innocently seductive way that Jake feared he would melt all over the damn floor.
She finished the dog, drained her water. “So? Are you going to sit there and critique my eating habits all day? We need to get back,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to do.” She popped up from her seat.
Yes, yes, yes, they needed to get back to reality right away. Jake dug in his back pocket for his wallet, lifted out a twenty and tossed it on the tabletop as Robin fussed with her unruly hair. He followed her out, noticed how smoothly she slipped into the truck when he opened the door for her. He came around to the driver’s seat, started her up, and was adjusting the radio again when he caught her looking at him.
He lifted a brow in question.
Robin smiled. “Is the game still on?”
As a matter of fact, the Astros game was now in its seventh inning, and he and Robin drove down Kirby listening to the game while the pink flamingos danced in the rearview mirror. When they turned onto North, the Astros drove a run in, and both whooped, high-fiving it like old friends.
“You know,” she said coyly as they neared her house, “I meant what I said today. You really aren’t half bad.” She gave him a grin so wicked that it made his pulse pound. He smiled and turned toward her, waiting for the punchline.
Robin arched one sculpted, devilish brow.
A silly grin spread across Jake’s lips, and he felt exactly like he had in the fifth grade when Maria Del Toro said she liked his shoes. He could have leapt tall buildings in those shoes after that. “Is that right?” he asked.
“You’re surprisingly much better than a pervert.”
“Thanks. That means a lot coming from you, Peanut.”
“But I have to take off points for your advocacy of processed meat snacks and the nasty things you said about Moz, who is the greatest pitcher ever.”
“Fair enough,” Jake agreed. “And I’m taking points off for the Fu-fu Notdogs.”
“That’s not fair, Jake. You can’t take points off for being healthy.”
“No, the points are being knocked off for being wacko,” he said, laughing, fully intent on telling her that she still wasn’t half bad in spite of her grave error in judgment, and in fact, pretty damn good, but Robin’s gaze was drawn to a point over his shoulder and her smile suddenly faded.
Jake dragged his gaze from Robin to look over his shoulder, to where Lindy was standing at the window holding an insulated lunch bag.
Chapter Eleven
How odd, Robin thought, as she sat staring at the girl with shoulder-length mousy brown hair, that she detected the faint smell of fried chicken. She and Jake opened their doors, stepped out at exactly the same moment, and he said, “Lindy, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Robin almost dropped her purse. Lindy? This was Lindy? This little chicken-fried jailbait was Jake’s girlfriend? What happened to blond and willowy? What happened to adult? What was she, maybe twelve? Unbelievable! Robin could kick herself—I meant what I said, you know—Damn it! She could just die of humiliation right here and now.
“Your mom. Hey, I brought you some fried chicken. Are you hungry?” Lindy was asking.