Ryan’s face now brightens with a devilish grin as I peek upward, his lips looking so soft and primed for kissing. “I sure hope so. The pizza last week was fantastic.”
I should leave now. He’s waiting for me to leave but, for some reason, I stay. Even worse? My eyelid goes ahead and winks all on its own.
“It’s good to see you again,” I say, praying my eye lays off on the winking thing. My brain has nothing to do with it, but for some reason, my face—more specifically my eye—feels like flirting with Ryan Pierce. The Ryan Pierce. “I thought you’d ordered just to see me again.”
He tips that beautiful face of his back and laughs, a real laugh that has me grinning along with him. Then he leans against the door, and one scan of his torso tells me there are rock solid abs underneath that sweater. “I was hoping you’d show up, and in case you were wondering, I got your name from the receipt last time.”
“Oh, I thought you’d stalked me.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise.”
The reminder of him paying last week registers, and I recall his generous tip. “You tipped far too much last week,” I say. “It was my mistake forgetting to collect payment. Here, this one’s on me.” I thrust the cash back into his hands, as if this makes everything better. “Please.”
He reaches out, his large hands closing around mine. A zing of electricity shoots through me, even more exciting than the pile of bills in my hands. “You’re worth every penny.”
“Oh.”
Then his face goes slack. “Christ, that sounds—I’m sorry, Andi. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I wave a hand. “So why the smiley face on the pizza? Seems…unusual.”
“To annoy my brother,” he says. “My mom started the tradition when we were kids. This is my brother’s house,” he adds. “Although the woman taking orders at your restaurant didn’t seem very excited about it, so I promise to go for the regular sausage next time.”
“That’s just Angela. She thinks smiley face pizzas are too much rainbow-farting-unicorns bullshit.”
Now Ryan really laughs. He sets the pizza on a table just inside the door, his eyes dancing when he faces me again. “And what do you think?”
“I thought you were using it to get laid.” I shrug. “Guess I was wrong.”
“Why would you think that?”
I raise an eyebrow. “No comment. In fact, I should be leaving now.”
I make it halfway down the stairs before he calls after me.
“So, Andi,” he says, and I look over my shoulder at him. “Would you like to come inside and have a bite of pizza with me?”
I turn around, halfway down the front lawn. “Me?”
“No, the other Andi.”
I frown at him. “You tipped me in cash. If I come inside, that’s basically prostitution.”
“I wasn’t trying to hook up with you. I just think you’re funny, and otherwise, I’ll be eating alone.”
“Oh.” I stand still, trying to figure out if this is a good development, or a very, very, bad thing. I mean, I want to be a comic, so funny is good, right? But at the same time, it feels a little bit like I’ve been insta-friend-zoned.
I’m still puzzling on what he means when a figure appears in the doorway behind Ryan. It’s a woman, and she’s holding a sheaf of papers in one hand and high-end shopping bags in the other. Her hair is a gorgeous chestnut brown, long and wavy and perky. I wonder if it’s the mystery woman from last week, or maybe a new one?
She looks up and smiles at me. “Hi.”
I give a dumb-looking finger wave as she turns to Ryan, quickly kisses him on the cheek, and then hurtles her lithe frame down the steps. Her yoga pants show off a nice, toned ass, and I remember that I really need to do more squats, stat.
“I won’t be home tonight, flying out of town. Back tomorrow evening,” she calls over her shoulder. “Behave!”
Ryan calls a goodbye after her. He waits for her to flounce out of the gate—yes, she flounces—and then turns to me. “Where did we land on the subject of you coming in for a bite to eat?”
I shake my head. “Listen, Ryan. You seem fun, and I think I like you as a person, which is why I hope you’ll understand when I tell you that…I accidentally ran my car into yours.”
“What?”
“So as for the bite to eat, it’s probably best if we skip it, especially with your girlfriend just leaving.”
I want to hit myself in the face. I’m using the oldest trick in the playbook in an attempt to find out if Ryan’s single, and in the process, I admitted to crashing his car. Thankfully, he blows by the whole car issue and focuses on the brunette.
A complicated expression crosses his face. “That’s Lilia.”
“Lilia,” I mumble. “Of course.”
“My brother’s fiancée,” he says. “This is his house. I’m just staying here for a couple of weeks.”
I gulp for oxygen, feeling like Nemo out of water. Then I step backward and realize I am officially the world’s worst delivery girl. I’m prying into his personal relationships, a topic I have absolutely no business prying into.
“Hey, where are you going?” Before I can fall off the front steps, Ryan reaches out. His fingers loop around my wrist and it feels like I’ve been burned—burned by the most intense, sexy fire imaginable. “You never explained what you meant about the car crash.”
“Car crash?” I feign ignorance. He leans his cozy, sweatpants-clad figure out the door, and I can see his muscles straining under the material. It’s distracting. “Sorry?”
“Are you okay?” His eyes darken with concern.
“Here,” I blurt out, throwing a few twenties at his hands as I turn around. “I’ll leave my insurance information on your windshield.”
Ryan watches me leave. He appears bewildered, and I can’t blame him. I am responsible for bamboozling Ryan Pierce.
I scribble the name of our insurance company as fast as possible and stick it on the windshield of the slightly dented Ferrari. I climb back into my car and roar away from Ryan’s estate as fast as I can. Mexico, here I come.
Before I round the corner, I catch a glimpse of Ryan emerging onto the street. In my rearview mirror, I watch him examine the trophy I left behind—my bumper.
CHAPTER 8
Ryan
That woman is a walking disaster.
If I were smart, I’d call the insurance company and have them sort out the details, figure out what it’ll cost to repair the damages from her shitmobile bowling into my Ferrari, but somehow, I can’t manage to do that. It’s clear she doesn’t have a lot of money, and it’s my fault she was here in the first place.
Anyway, it’s not a huge dent.
Plus, it’s a rental. My idiot brother lined it up, thinking I’d want a Ferrari. I didn’t. I don’t. It deserves the fucking dent.