He’d put a definitive period at the end of that sentence. He wasn’t about to explain himself, especially not to her.
Both dogs were unusually silent and staring at each other. Clarke wondered if it was because they were picking up on the mutual animosity between their owners.
Clarke set his dog down and remained beside the whippet, waiting for Ceci to do the same.
“Okay, Boudica,” Ceci said, setting the bulldog down.
Clarke frowned. “Boudica?”
She glared at him. And for a reason unknown to him, he made the stupid move of allowing his eyes to drift to the southern ice caps.
Is she wearing a bra? What woman doesn’t? This one. Maybe. But in freezing temperatures like this?
She might even do it on purpose.
“Oh really.” He heard her say in a mocking tone.
His heart raced as his eyes shot back up to meet hers. He hadn’t said any of that out loud, had he? Sometimes he did that without realizing it. But he always made a special effort not to do it out in public.
To do it. Now. With her. Unthinkable. Unbearable.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry,” he managed, swallowing that stone that had lodged in his throat. “I was just focused on the dogs. You know, worried they might not—” He looked down to see that the dogs were no longer there. “Get along,” he added, glancing into the house, where he saw the two dogs wagging their tails, or in Boudica’s case, butt, and running circles around each other. The whippet made a delicate leap and hugged Boudica. She was rewarded with a healthy lick of the bulldog’s lusty tongue.
He looked back at Ceci. She stood up and he did likewise.
“So what’s wrong withBoudica?” she hissed.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”
“You didn’t have to. That thing you do with your eyes and your mouth does it for you. The disapproval just wafts off you like some kind of toxic chemical.”
“It does?”
“It does. You didn’t know?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean the way you make it sound. I don’t disapprove of the name. I’m just surprised by it.”
She placed her hands on her hips, and he could feel his eyes begin to drift until he forced them to stay put and opened them wider. He probably looked like one of those subterranean goggle-eyed fishes the way he was staring back at her. Better that than a trip down south to Antarctica.
Where is that fucking sweater? Why doesn’t she put it on already?
He wiped his palm on the back of his neck and only then realized she had yet to invite him in. He was still standing outside in something like thirty-degree temperature and sweating. How was that possible?
“Do you even know who Boudica was?” she demanded.
“She was a warrior queen of the Iceni people. She led a revolt against Roman rule around 60–61 CE, I think. But she was a female and he is not.”
She lifted her chin. “He has the same sort of spirit. Why shouldn’t he bear the name of a female warrior? Gender be damned.”
“Oh, okay.”
He’d already pissed her off, and the date hadn’t even started yet. God, this day was going to be miserable. And long.
Things had changed after that crash at Silverstone. She used to flirt with him, put her hands on him, anything to make him blush. It made him uncomfortable, but he’d sort of liked it. Now, given the thingsthey’d said to the press and on social media, there was this animosity between them.
He heard a roar of laughter coming from inside. And then as if suddenly realizing he was still standing on the porch, she stepped aside, inviting him to enter.
