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He shrugged a shoulder. “I admit, it wasn’t my best. What’s your favorite pizza topping?”
I blinked. “You’re just asking me things you already know now. Are you really going to make me sit through 20 questions?”
He grinned, and I knew the answer.
Yes.
Yes, he was.
***
Two hours later, we were lying on the grass in the park, and I knew far more about Dexter Ryne than I knew about myself.
I knew he hated anything tomato until he was fifteen. He couldn’t swim until he was eight, and he still, to this day, wouldn’t swim underwater because he almost drowned when he was six. I knew he preferred the rain over the sun, but he hated being cold, and I knew that he hated long toenails with a passion.
Just like he knew I loved brussels sprouts but couldn’t stand carrots. He knew I hated being hot, and owned twenty-seven pairs of thick and fluffy socks. He also knew that I was a ballet dancer when I was younger but now could barely hold tune to the macarena, and nothing freaked me out more than spider webs.
Dinner had been this weird mish-mash of facts, and it’d only continued as we’d left the restaurant and walked to the park, even as we’d detoured to grab coffee.
Dex knocked over his empty cup as he rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. “I need to know. How do you store your sugar and salt if you baked a cake with salt?”
“Ugh, okay.” I dropped my head down to the grass before jerking it back up. “So, my mom is a total neat-freak. She has this serious organizational system in the pantry, and basically, everything that gets bought has its own jar, and they all have these little chalk signs attached to the front of them.”
“I think I can see where this is going.”
“I pulled out both the jars and even tasted it, then got distracted by my mom’s cat being up on the counter. Long story short, I forgot which one was which, and accidentally put the sugar away.”
“You didn’t think to check again?”
“Hey—I was sixteen and was trying to stop a cat sitting in my bowl of flour. I had some priorities. Like not baking cat hair.”
He waved his hand. “So, you didn’t know until you ate it?”
I grimaced. “Nope. The worst part is that this was when my parents weren’t together. I never got along with my stepmom, and it was her birthday cake.”
Dex shook as he held back laughter.
“I’d been a bit horrible to her when I’d stayed at my dad’s, so the birthday cake was my way of trying to build a bridge and…”
“You burned it down.”
I nodded. “She thought I’d done it deliberately and wouldn’t listen to reason that it was a mistake.”
“Oh man. That’s horrible.”
“Not really. My mom knew I was a terrible baker, and later admitted to coming into the kitchen while I was chasing the cat out and switching the jars.” I smirked. “Technically, I didn’t get it wrong. She made a habit of trolling my stepmother, and that was the day she’d won.”
He let the laughter go. “That’s fucking amazing. Holy shit. How didn’t you know?”
“I have a love-hate relationship with the cat. Sometimes she won’t leave me alone, other times, she won’t go near me and will hiss at the sound of my voice.”
“That sounds like my sister.”
I nudged him in the shoulder and rolled over onto my back. “She’s not that bad.”
“Nah, she’s not. But she did hiss at me once. I slipped a naked baby photo of her in her boyfriend’s pocket. It didn’t matter, but he was the asshole who knocked her up.”
“Am I nosy if I say I wondered about that?”
He shook his head. “She’s the first person to tell the story. She’s not ashamed of the fact she’s a single parent. She said she’d rather it than have to fight with a total jackass all the time. She did that for a year before she realized she was giving him energy that she could have spent on Charley.”
“He never sees her?”
“He’s met her about three times. It doesn’t really matter. Charley doesn’t need him, and neither does Roxy.”
Despite the arguing, he softened when he spoke about them. It was plain to see they were as close as siblings could be.
“She’s got you.” I smiled, turning my face toward him.
He shrugged, brushing it off. “I’m not that great.”
“Oh, sure. Everything else, you brag about, but being a great uncle and brother? No, you’re a terrible person.”
He laughed, pushing hair from my face. “It’s so nice when we agree.”
I batted his hand away. “I’m not agreeing with you. That was called sarcasm, you nut.”
“I know. It’s been a while since I fucked with you, that’s all.”
I glared at him. “Stop, or I’ll call your sister and make her tell me more about how you used to play with your penis in the bath tub.”
