“I realize that. Figured you’d moved on.” She almost bit her tongue clean off. Why did she have to say that? It sounded ... mopey and girlie and needy and all those things she’d rather not sound like.
“No, I just had some business things I had to take care of. I would have called you at night or come by your house, but you didn’t give me your cell number or your home address.”
She crossed her arms. “When has that ever stopped you? Couldn’t your oh-so-stealthy agent scout them out for you?”
“Actually, yes, she could have.” He cocked his head to the side. “I figured maybe you’d want to give them to me yourself this time. Maybe even invite me over to your house.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you like me.”
Telling him no was on the tip of her tongue. She’d just gotten to the point where she thought she’d never see him again.
And she’d spent the entire week missing him and feeling achy about not seeing him. How utterly pathetic, especially since she hadn’t wanted to start up a relationship with him in the first place.
“I’d really like to meet your son. Does he like football?”
She sighed. “He loves football.”
He moved in closer, picked up a strand of her hair, twirling the curling end between his fingers. “Invite me over for dinner. We’ll have pizza.”
“You don’t strike me as the pizza type.”
“Then there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
No doubt. “That’s not a good idea.”
He leaned in closer. God, he smelled good. Her hormones noticed.
“Invite me over for pizza.”
“Would you like to come over for dinner tonight, Mick?” Damn hormones.
His smile could melt a woman straight into the floorboards.
“I’d love to. Give me your address.”
She jerked a piece of paper from the pad on the table and wrote her address.
“Might as well add your cell phone number, too.”
She did, then handed him the paper. “Six thirty okay?”
“Perfect.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips across hers, and her stomach did flip-flops. Her utterly girlie stomach. Dammit.
“See you then.”
He walked out. Tara stupidly stood at the window watching him walk across the street, his stride eating up the asphalt. He looked damn hot in a pair of cargo pants and a white T-shirt that stretched tightly over his mighty fine muscles.
Maggie’s sigh over her shoulder jolted her back to reality. She whipped around to face Maggie, Ellen, and Karie.
“What?”
“You’re dating the captain of the football team,” Karie said with a dreamy sigh.
Tara rolled her eyes. “Go back to work. All of you. This isn’t high school.”
“No, but it’s every girl’s dream from high school,” Ellen said with a laugh.
TARA HAD A HALF HOUR BEFORE MICK WAS DUE TO arrive, and she was a total wreck. One would think the queen was arriving instead of just a guy coming over to sit on her couch and have pizza.
Her house was a disaster, the scourge of having an unsupervised teenager running amok during the day. Empty soda cans littered the tables in the living room, the sink was filled with dishes, and said culprit had already taken off for his friend’s house for the night.
The kid was going to be toast. She’d have him on housecleaning duty the rest of the week.
She picked up, ran the vacuum, tossed the dishes into the dishwasher, then dashed upstairs to change clothes, deciding Mick was either going to have to deal with her life and the state of her house or he’d leave, preferring the jet-set lifestyle of caviar, maid service, and supermodels.
Tara was neither caviar nor supermodelish, and she sure as hell didn’t have maid service. She was pizza on a Friday night, and the way she looked now, which was tank top, blue jeans, and flip-flops, with her hair wound into a messy ponytail thingy. He was going to have to take it or leave it.
She let out a low shriek when the doorbell rang, then hurried downstairs toward the door, shooting a glance at the clock as she took the stairs two at a time.
She was out of breath by the time she flung the door open, and Mick frowned.
“Asthma attack?”
“More like a panic attack. I was picking up the house and trying to make myself presentable.”
He walked in with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. “You look pretty presentable to me. These are for you.”
Wildflowers. Not a dozen roses, but daisies and bellflowers and lilies and freesia and baby’s breath. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
He followed her into the kitchen. “You didn’t strike me as a roses kind of woman.”
“I’m not a roses kind of woman. I love these.” She grabbed a vase and filled it with water, then arranged the flowers in it and put it on her dining room table.
“Where’s Nathan?”