“Luca,” she said, blinking as though I was some sort of apparition. “What are you doing here?”
WhatwasI doing there? I couldn’t tell her the truth. Not the part about Dallas and Katie because I couldn’t bring myself to relivethatever again. But I also couldn’t tell her that when I got in my car with nowhere to be, she was where I wanted to go. She was my somewhere.
I swallowed hard, holding out the pizza box. “Um, I thought maybe you could use some dinner?”
She studied me for a moment with narrowed eyes, but finally stepped aside, her lips curling into a half smile. “Well, you thought right.”
THIRTEEN
McKenzie
Luca was in my kitchen.He’d shown up unannounced and uninvitedwith dinner. This time he wasn’t here out of some misplaced obligation to keep watch over the drunk girl.
Why is he here?
“What do you want to drink?” I asked, naming the different sodas I had on hand while I pulled a couple of plates down from the cabinet. When I turned back to the counter, I saw he’d already opened the fridge.
“I was just about to ask you that.” I’d almost forgotten he’d familiarized himself with my kitchen only hours ago.
I bit back a grin. “Coke Zero.”
He wrinkled his nose, grabbing my drink and a regular Coke for himself, placing them on the counter. My cats blinked at me, equal parts annoyed and curious about the deviation from our normal routine before sauntering off to the bedroom.
“How do you drink that shit?” Luca asked. “Don’t you miss the real sugar?”
“There will be no Coke Zero slander in my house.That shitis the nectar of the gods.” I reached for a piece of pizza in the open box at the same time he did, and our hands collided in a spark of electricity that made my stomach flip.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, feeling a rush of warmth climb up my cheeks.
He pulled his hand back and shoved it through his dark hair. “No, you go ahead.”
I grabbed a couple of slices, plopping them onto my plate, and he did the same.
“You want to watch a movie or something?” I asked, nodding toward the couch.
“Sure,” he answered, following me to the sofa where my television was on the Netflix home screen.
“What do you want to watch?” I asked, clearing my throat to mask the hint of nervousness clinging to my voice.
He squinted at the screen. “So, you’re into true crime?”
“Huh?”
He pointed to my recently watched queue. “There’s a whole lot of serial killers right there. Should I be worried?”
I snorted. “That’s called being a woman.”
“What? Being obsessed with psychopaths?”
I barked out a laugh, setting my drink on the small wooden coffee table. “Being prepared, in case you end up on a date with a murderer or if you tell the wrong guy ‘no.’”
“Shit. Seriously?”
“Uh,yeah,” I said. “Dudes are freaks.”
He raised his brows at me. “What if I’m a closet psycho killer?”
“Then you’re a stupid one, because you already had the perfect opportunity to cut my face off and wear it for Halloween, but you chose not to take it.”
