“I will not have you develop diabetes from eating too much sugar on my watch. I think Ash would kill me.”
I snort and bring the mug down, showing her the straight black coffee. “It’s nothing, see?”
She looks at it, sniffs. “So there’s no cream. How do I know you didn’t add ten pumps of syrup to that?”
I hand it to her. “Try it.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Ew. No thanks. Coffee tastes like headaches.”
“Come again?”
She opens the mini fridge and pulls out a Dr Pepper Zero. Then she crosses to the couch and kicks her feet up on the coffee table.
Big pink fuzzy socks cover her feet, and she’s in gray joggers and a bubblegum pink hoodie. She looks… soft. Comfortable. Not like Lucy Jane, country megastar, but Lou Williams, girl-next-door.
The whole package is a level of cute I didn’t expect from someone with that velvet-and-ash voice.
“I have chronic migraines. When I was a teen, my momma was worried about getting me on a preventative, so my neurologist said to have a cup of coffee every day. I hated it. Nothing I added could mask the taste, so after a couple of months, we tried teas and then settled on Dr Pepper. Well, Dr Pepper Zero, to be exact.” She tilts the can toward me, tapping the label. “I don’t drink sugar.”
“Sugar is delicious. You’re missing out,” I say, joining her on the couch.
I put my feet up next to hers. Bare feet next to fuzzy socks. I’m already dressed—jeans and a gray T-shirt—but I haven’t pulled on my socks or boots yet. It feels … casual. Like a couple sitting together before work, or at the end of a long day.
I like the idea a little too much.
She cracks the tab on her can, and it releases a satisfying hiss. “I know exactly what I’m missing.” She takes a long drink, and I can hear the bubbles fizzing. “I’m an ‘abstinence is easier than moderation’ kind of girl, so I limit sugar a lot. As long as I don’t see cinnamon rolls, I’m fine.”
I smile at this. “Cinnamon rolls are your kryptonite?”
She closes her eyes, almost wincing. “You have no idea. I will eat an entire row. More, maybe. It’s not good.”
I shrug, and we both take a drink of our respective poison.
“I finally get it.”
She chokes on her drink and coughs enough that I pat her back. “It?”
“You.”
She sets down her can and plants her elbows on her knees, narrowing her eyes at me. Her expression is different without her penciled-in eyebrows. Sharper. More assessing.
“Do you like this back and forth we always do, where you constantly have some provocative four-word comment or wildly unsatisfying one-word answer?” She clasps her hands in front of her. “I’m a lawyer, so I like a good question as much as the next girl, but did you know you’re allowed to just … say what you mean? You don’t have to be such a provocateur.”
My eyebrows jump, and I lean back on the couch. Whether to get some distance or to process what she said, I’m not sure.
I’m lying.
I am sure: it’s both.
“Huh.”
She groans, tilting her head back. “Seriously?”
I chuckle. “I’m not trying to … give one-word responses just to get a rise out of you. I’m thinking.”
She smirks. “Thinking I’m rightis more like it.”
I hold my mug on my lap, wrapping my hands around it. I still have over half left, whereas I think Lou’s just about finished her can.
