“Really?” she asks dubiously.
“Yes. Let’s keep you out of it. If she doesn’t back off, we can slip the marriage licenses under José’s door anonymously or maybe circle back to the background check idea. I’ll pretend I’m hiring her to redecorate the house or something.”
“No way.” She presses a hand to my chest. “I can handle this, Cormac. You don’t have to do all of that. You’ve done too much for me already.”
“It’s like I said. Our parents want us to get along.”
Her half-smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Somehow, I don’t think this is what they had in mind.”
“Then they shouldn’t have tried to push us together. Look, I’m invested now. I want to help you. But I’d like for you to promise me something.”
She raises her severe dark brows, and I can tell her body is practically humming with the need to act. “What?”
“If he wants to marry her anyway, after knowing everything, you’ll back off. You can let them think we’re still together for as long as you need to, but you’ll quit it with the Scooby-Doo business.”
She sets her ginger beer down on the counter with a sharp clack. “He’d be a fool to do that.”
“Sure, and he might come home one day to find a reused breakup Post-it, but a lot of people are fools for love.” I’m tempted to offer myself up as example number one. Instead, I say, “Look at Dottie’s friend Ann. She’s positive she’s been cyberdating a celebrity, and she made plans to meet him in person this weekend.”
“We can’t let her do that!” She takes a step toward the front of the house, as if she’s ready to charge to the bakery several days early to keep Ann from the catfish guy.
I wrap my hand around her arm, turning her toward me. “We can’t stop her. We have to honor her free will. Same goesfor José. You can’t force people to do what you want, even if you think it’s good for them.”
“So we should just let them get scammed?”
“I didn’t say that. We’re doing everything we can to help José, and Liam, Mick, and I are going to be in the bakery where Ann’s meeting this guy. We plan on having a talk with him. We’ll let him know that Ann has friends.”
Her expression softens, and she wraps her arm around me. “You’re going to rough some guy up, Cormac? I didn’t expect it of you.”
“Liam and Mick are the muscle. But I have certain other skills I can contribute.”
“I’ll just bet you do.” She reaches for my glasses, and this time I let her remove them.
Smiling, she sets them on her nose, looking unsurprisingly adorable in the horn-rimmed lenses. “I have a new appreciation for how blind you are.”
“And I have a new regret for it,” I say, studying her blurry edges.
Her smile turns warm and soft—the middle of a chocolate chip cookie. I get a bit carried away, enough to say something stupid.
“Will you stay the night, Nora?”
I regret the words as soon as they come out, because something on her face changes. I understand what she’s going to say before she says it. She likes being with me, and we have fun together, but she doesn’t want more.
Maybe because of this Jonah guy.
Maybe because I’mme. Good enough to sleep with, but not for a relationship. Definitely not worth risking her harmony with her mother.
I should probably take that to heart and do the smart thing, like she’s hoping José will. I should give up and move on. But I’lltake what I can get, even if it’s not what I have the audacity to want.
She clears her throat as she removes the glasses and hands them back to me. “No, that’s not a good idea, but we could hang out for a while. I’m not ready to go home just yet either.”
And what do you know? All I need is that buoy of hope from her—not big enough to save a drowning man, but enough to keep him afloat for a few hours.
I kiss her, and she kisses me back softly, sweetly, before giving me a wicked smile. “In the Shirtless Chef’s latest video, he made chocolate pudding. It looked really good.”
“I doubt I have any of the ingredients.”
She starts playing with the bottom hem of my shirt. “But you do have one of those crappy instant pudding packets in the pantry. We can make do.”
