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“Favorite color?” she asked sweetly.
“Blue. Now, my turn.”
“No, thanks,” she said, slapping her menu on the table. “Besides, it’ll take me a while to wake myself up from my nap. What a riveting life you’ve had.”
Mitchell gave her a slow, victorious smile.
“What?” she snapped. “You like being insulted?”
“No, but I like when you get all uppity like this. Be honest … you think all that small talk is garbage. You could barely keep yourself awake long enough to answer the questions.”
“Whatever,” she muttered. “Clearly you don’t date much.”
Julie thought she saw something dark flash across his face, but it was gone before she could name the emotion.
“My turn for the questions,” he said again.
“Fine,” she sighed wearily. “Let’s get it over with.”
“You work for Stiletto magazine.”
“Hardly a secret.”
He ignored her snotty tone. “And you’re part of some little power trio.”
“That’s right,” she said slowly, surprised he knew that much. He didn’t seem the type to be plugged into Manhattan’s social scene or read “Page Six.”
“And you write the sexy stuff?”
She hid a smile. Most men wouldn’t dare touch Stiletto in public, but that didn’t mean they weren’t curious.
“Sort of,” she replied. “The magazine calls it Dating, Love, and Sex.”
“Kiss, Cuddle, and Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
Julie choked on her beer. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” he said, looking faintly horrified and a good deal less cocky than he had a moment before.
“Oh, no way am I letting you off that hook,” Julie said, leaning forward. “If I don’t get to hide behind pleasantries, neither do you.”
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. You said ‘Kiss, Cuddle, and Fuck.’ What is that?”
He gave her a swift look as though the answer should be obvious, but he still refused to answer.
The answer hit her almost immediately. Julie burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s good,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t wait to tell Grace and Riley. They’ll love that.”
He looked doubtful. “So out of the three, you’re …”
“Dating. Or Kiss, by your definition. Some people would probably tell you that I write the fluff pieces of our section, but I like to think I write the good stuff. Somehow our society has developed this mentality that dating is supposed to be stressful. It should be fun.”
“Sure, at first. But it can’t be all fun and games.”
“Why not?”
He looked frustrated. “Because that’s not real life.”
