He proceeded to dig into his noodles, eating with obvious delight. He finished it in like three bites, popped the top on his can and took a long swig. His eyes closed.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Dragonfruit lime refresher," I said.
"Tastes surprisingly good."
I bit back a smile. "Of course, it does."
"There's probably a ton of bad stuff in here though."
"Don't ruin it, Stone."
Tolliver wisely stopped trying to find fault with my sweet drink of choice. We sat there in companionable silence as I finished my noodles, and he sipped from his can, savoring the flavor. I had done this so many times. This booth should've had my name on it. Whenever I needed a moment out of the house to breathe or study or decompress, I'd come here. Having Tolliver with me should've been weird.
But it wasn't.
Clearing my throat, I removed my journal and a pen from my purse and set them on the table.
"Tomorrow," I said, "is Sabrina's party."
"I remember," Tolliver said.
"Since we'll be expected to act like..." I stumbled on what to call us, and he grinned.
Couplesounded formal.
Boyfriend, girlfriendwas too juvenile—and somehow too old-fashioned at the same time.
Hookupwas...just no.
In the end, I settled on, "They'll expect anus, so we have to give them one."
"Agreed." He nodded as if that wasn't confusing at all and jutted his chin at my open notebook. "What do you have there?"
"Questions," I said. "I figured we should get to know each other."
"But we already do."
"Not enough to pass as anus."
Tolliver didn't argue, but he did hold out a hand. "Let me see those," he said.
"Why?"
"Because if we're doing this, I prefer to ask the questions."
"Fine," I mumbled, passing him the book. "Who knew you could be so bossy?"
"Would we call that bossy or assertive? I just asked for what I want," he said, eyes sparkling. "You could've said no."
"Then you'd wonder what I was hiding."
"Yeah, but you say no a lot. At least to me."
"No, I don't."
He raised a brow like I'd proven his point.
