He pouted. “You won’t worry?”
A laugh that sounded more like a snort escaped her lips. “Of course not.”
“Not even just a little?”
She stared into his eyes. He had to be joking. But he didn’t look it—or sound it.
“It’s nice to have someone worry about you,” he said.
She felt her eyes prick.No, she told them.
You will not play misty now. Not when there’s no mark and nothing to gain from it.
“Not that you want people you care about to worry,” he said. “You don’t. But still, it’s nice that they do. Don’t you think?”
She did.
But he had so many people to do that.
“You have plenty of people who worry about you,” she said. “Your nieces, your sister, your parents and grandparents, Dario and Celeste. You don’t need me.”
“I guess.” He looked down at the carpet and muttered. “But it’ll be quiet with my nieces gone. Not a bad thing. But sometimes not a good thing.” He looked up, trying to peer at her with glazed eyes. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” He swayed right, and the door began to swing. He stuck his foot out just in time to catch it before it shut. “Quiet makes thoughts louder. Specially thoughts you don’t want to be having. Specially not before you go to sleep.”
“I understand.”
He brightened. “You do?”
For some reason, looking at him now, she wanted to laugh. But then she thought he might think she was laughing at him. And she didn’t want him to think that.
So, she nodded. “I do.”
All too well.
He smiled just before his head fell forward, and he was back to staring at the carpet. Suddenly he looked up, and his eyes brightened. “There’s leftover pizza.”
When she hesitated, he added, “Oh right. Maybe not pizza.”
He bit his lip.
She wished he wouldn’t do that. His lips had mastered the Goldilocks principle. They weren’t too thick. They weren’t too thin. They were just right—perfect. And the upper lip, which he now had betweenhis teeth, dipped in a dramatic way like a curve in the road that showed you something wholly unexpected once you got around it. Something that could make your palms sweat, your heart stop, and maybe even make you gasp for breath.
Suddenly, he snapped his fingers with his other hand. “Chocolate. There’s chocolate. Chocolate. And more chocolate. There’s so much chocolate, you can put chocolate on chocolate. And more than one kind of chocolate.”
She didn’t want to, but damn it, she couldn’t stop herself. She smiled.
She stopped pulling against him.
“We didn’t eat all the chocolate?”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I have some stashed away—in three different hiding places. I have to when those two Tasmanian devils are around.”
Her smile broadened. She couldn’t stop it if she tried. And she wasn’t trying. But she still couldn’t seem to move one foot in front of the other.
“Where are the hiding places?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not going to give all my secrets away. Not without getting something in return.”
She felt herself take a step forward as though gravity itself had pushed her.
