Alex quirked an eyebrow. “I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but seriously? Your lasagna’s a he?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not my pasta. Ninety-six.”
“What were you expecting?”
I scooted my chair closer to Alex’s and dropped my voice. “If a guy walks out dressed like that”—I angled my brows—“then he likely doesn’t know how far behind he is. You know, fashionably.”
“And that means . . . ?”
“God, Alex, do I have to spell everything out for you?”
“Yes. Please.”
“He’s dead. At least I thought he was.”
“But he’s warm, so horror of all horrors, he’s a live guy in twenty-year-old fashion? That never happens.” He popped another bite of penne into his mouth.
I cut into my lasagna and chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t buy it. In this town?”
Alex put down his fork and knife. “Now that’s one thing I truly love about you, Lawson.” He blinked at me, his eyes catching the sparkle of the twinkle lights strung in the trees, his loose curls lazily licking the tops of his ears. I knew I was supposed to be flummoxed and mercurial and angered about his and my recent string of romantic follies, but when his voice dropped into that spun-sugar sweetness and the cornflower blue of his eyes pulled me in, I was a kitten, purring. The sexy softness of his voice dripped through me and I put down my own knife and fork, knitted my hands in my lap, and waited.
“What do you love about me, Alex?” I drew out my words, each one hanging on the soft night air.
“I love that if there’s a seemingly simple solution to an issue, say, a gentleman preps for a date by pulling out his best date duds—”
“Circa twenty years ago.”
“Circa twenty years ago, he can’t possibly just be a victim of fashion circumstance. He has to be newly risen from the dead.”
I smiled sweetly. “The simplest solution is often the best solution.”
“And rising from the dead is simple for you, eh?”
I picked up my wineglass and leaned back in my chair. “I call ’em as I see ’em. Hey, where’d he go?”
“Looks like his date didn’t mind his fashion flaws as much as you did. They’re leaving.”
“We should follow them.”
Alex blew out an exasperated sigh but threw down a few bills anyway. “Fine.”
I reached for his arm, but when I turned around, I was eye-to-glassy-eye with a pub crawl zombie. He dropped open his mouth and gurgled, little bursts of beer-soaked air bubbling in my face. “Ew!” I tried to edge around Beer Zombie, but there was another behind him and two more behind her. Nineteen-ninety-six and Fashion Forward had disappeared among the stiff, moaning crowd.
“I guess we’re not chasing bad pants tonight,” Alex said with far too easy a smile.
A little nervous zeal wound through me. Was I sending a woman to her blood-sucking, badly fashioned doom?
“You’re overreacting, Lawson. You work for a company that detects guys like that. Any new vamps?”
I bit my lip, considering. “No. But—”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
I scowled. “Well, he’s Cabbage Patch-ing to them.”
Alex cocked his head, silent, but challenging. I blew out a defeated sigh. “It is possible that I may have rushed to judgment as I have, on occasion—”
“Jumped to a conclusion or two?”
I cocked what I hoped was a menacing brow. “Not jumped. Hopped. Frolicked toward.”
Alex swung his head. “You’re impossible.”
We edged our way between the beer-soaked zombies and beer-buying zombie sympathizers, and then zigzagged into a slip of a store selling gelato and delicate, hot-off-the-iron pizzelles. The fog had finally blanketed the hot evening and I shivered, rubbing my palms up my arms.
“Cold?” Alex asked once I had my gelato-slash-pizzelle spoils.
“A little.”
He shimmied out of the button-down shirt he was wearing over his fitted tee, and I tried to convince myself that the my immediate salivation was due to the proximity of my dark chocolate pinot noir gelato, rather than the sweet hunk of ice creamy goodness flexing his muscles in front of me. Either way, I was engulfed in jaw-dropping, panty-melting pleasure with a spoonful of gelato in my mouth and Alex’s gentle touch as he settled his shirt on my naked shoulders. His fingers trailed the tiniest bit across my collarbone, leaving a trail of electrical sparks that shot licks of fire directly to my belly. I clamped my legs together and pleaded with my intellect to remember that I was in the throes of a moral issue, caught between two men I really cared for. Then Alex gently cupped my chin and rubbed his thumb carefully over my bottom lip.
“You have a little bit of chocolate sauce there.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off his sly smile, the drip of chocolate on his thumb as he brought his hand to his mouth, parted those perfect lips, and licked.