“Pizza!” the girls cried. “We want pizza!”
Nico grinned. “Do you ever not want pizza?”
They looked at each other as though this were a serious question that required some thought. Then they quickly shook their heads.
“Except when we’re with you, of course,” Sofia said.
“To be sure,” Beatrice agreed. “No pizza for you, Nico. We almost lost you.”
Sofia nodded. “And it was all because of pizza.”
Beatrice sighed. “Most definitely. All because of pizza.”
Ceci chuckled. “What?”
Nico shook her head. “Don’t ask.”
Ceci smiled. “So what do you say, Izzy?”
“Okay,” Isabella said. “If you’re sure.”
Oh, I’m sure.
Her date with Sir Stick Up His Ass was tonight. This time it was his choice where they’d go and what they’d do. He won today’s race and Anker was shut out. It was the first time this season that had happened. And she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
There was a question that had been haunting her. She’d thought about asking him more than once and told herself shehadn’tbecause the dates after Austin had been so chaotic. But a part of her wondered if she hadn’t asked because she hadn’t wanted to hear the answer.
Where did he get the idea that going to her father’s house was doing something nice for her? She had to have given it to him. But how? What had she said that led him to think that? She didn’t even remember inviting him.
She did, however, remember that kiss. The one outside the bar and the one in the presence of her father.
Did Clarke remember? They hadn’t kissed since. Maybe he’d been swept up in the moment, and everything that had happened since put any passion he’d once felt in the deep freeze.
If there was anyone who might view tonight’s date with more apprehension than her, it would be him, given the way every other date since Austin had ended.
In Emilia-Romagna, while walking through the Piazza Maggiore, they’d been mobbed by press and fans who’d asked Clarke how it felt to date a woman who kept beating him. Clarke grabbed her hand and took off to flee, only to trip on the stone of shame behind the Fountain of Neptune. The result? A cut on his right cheek. Then there was the date after the race in Belgium. Another altercation between Ceci and a man at a club resulted in Ceci once again shoving Clarke aside. This time, the other side of his mouth ran into the bar’s edge. In Hungary, it was a busted nose, and in the Netherlands, a cut on his jaw that required stitches.
He’s probably going to be thrilled when he hears I have to cancel tonight’s date.
Just then Ian Anker walked up to Ceci and Nico. That spiky blond hair and those cobalt-blue eyes were radiating fire. He was pissed, and the only guy who could make a scowl look like a grin.
Beatrice and Sofia stepped forward, holding their hands out like traffic cops.
“Thou shalt halt, Black Knight,” Sofia commanded. “For thou art vanquished!”
“Indeed, thou art,” proclaimed Beatrice. “Thou art banished!
“Go hither!” they cried in unison.
He grinned. “I’m the Black Knight?”
They nodded emphatically, crossing their arms and glaring at him.
He mimicked them, crossing his arms as well. “Then,” he sneered, “that would make me Sir Percy.”
Sofia and Beatrice frowned at one another.
“Does he mean Sir Percival?” Beatrice murmured in a low voice.
