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“No,” he said, talking to the road. “I usually work late. I don’t get home until midnight sometimes. I’ll leave early if I need to take my grandma to the doctor, but that’s about it.”

“You go with your grandma to the doctor?”

“I used to. Up until October when she still lived here.”

Gah.

This man was amazing. Like, in every single way. Unless he had a micropenis he was self-conscious about, I couldn’t see why he wasn’t all over Tinder letting women climb him like a ladder. I’d climb this man no matter what he had in his pants.

Maybe he did have a micropenis…

Maybe that’s why he didn’t send dick pics…

Maybe that’s what he meant by shock and awe…

I gasped quietly and slid my eyes over to his lap.

“My assistant is obsessed with you,” he said, breaking into my thoughts.

I darted my gaze away from his crotch. “She’s not from Monett, Missouri, is she?”

He laughed.

He was different this afternoon. Lighter somehow. More Mr. Bingley and less Mr. Darcy.

“You’re almost not brooding at all today,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

He smiled at the road. “I think it’s the sponge.”

I pulled my legs up and crossed them under me on the seat. “You know, I have a lot of good ideas.”

He turned into the Whole Foods parking lot. “Like what?”

“Like, I think you need some throw pillows, a fleece blanket, and a plant in your living room. Your apartment’s a little American Psycho. Every time I’m in there I feel like you’re going to start talking to me about Phil Collins.”

“‘Invisible Touch’ was the group’s undisputed masterpiece,” he said, giving me a line from the movie.

I laughed so hard I started choking on my spit.

He turned into a parking space with a grin. “I’m not letting you decorate my apartment.”

I wiped at my eyes. “I’m not trying to decorate your apartment,” I said, putting my fingers in quotes. “I’m trying to enhance your quality of life. Your surroundings affect your mood.” I nodded through the windshield. “There’s a Pottery Barn, right there. I say we go.”

He chuckled, putting the car in park. “Okay. I’ll make a deal with you. I will let you enhance my quality of life with homewares on the condition that you tell me what you used to do before you were a YouTuber.”

I pivoted in my seat to look at him full-on. “Four throw pillows, two throw blankets, a Christmas tree, and I get to pick a centerpiece for the dining room table.”

Something lawyerly flickered across his face. “Two throw pillows, one blanket, a poinsettia, and we agree on the centerpiece.”

I narrowed my eyes. “No. Not good enough.” I got unbuckled and got out of the car.

“That is an extremely generous offer my client is making you,” he said, as we both leaned into the back seat on our respective sides to grab Grace at the same time. I let him take her and I picked up the diaper bag instead.

We met around the back as I pulled the stroller from the trunk in the nippy winter air. “What I used to do for a living is epically ironic. You will love it. I’m not wasting it on some half-assed attempt at placating me.” I pulled out the stroller and he clipped the car seat onto it. I started pushing Grace toward the shops.

“Placating you?” he said, chirping on the car alarm and jogging next to me with a grin.

“Poinsettias are poisonous. You have a dog and a baby that comes over,” I argued.