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“Handsome. Fit. Overdosed on charm.”
“Yeah, I hear women hate all those qualities,” he said, feeling oddly stung by her disdain. Why he should want Grace Brighton to like him was beyond him, but it bothered him the way she so easily dismissed him as a specimen to be analyzed.
“But you get my point,” she continued. “You could suggest a couples colonoscopy, and women would probably agree. But your suggestions aren’t universal.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “And you’re telling me that your articles are universal? Let’s see, what are some of your more recent gems? Planning a steak night he’ll drool for … now Grace, did you ever think about all those vegetarians? Or what was that one you wrote about how couples who run together have better sex? That’s just not inclusive of people with joint problems or shin splints, now is it? Was that advice universal? Or let’s take your friend Julie, who makes it seem like the flipping of one’s hair is an art form. What about women with short hair? How are they going to learn that trick?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Thought you said you’d never read my articles.”
Jake gave a sheepish smile. “I may have done a little reconnaissance.”
She nodded once before doing a little backtracking of her own. “Okay, maybe I can admit that our respective articles don’t apply to all situations.”
He nodded, looking a little thrown off by her easy capitulation.
She hoped she was throwing him off. He was certainly throwing her off.
Even worse, she was sort of liking the guy. She’d known he was charming. Known he was confident.
But he was also genuine. A little bit funny.
More than that, he listened when she spoke. Greg had so often had that glazed-over expression on his face, and that’s when he hadn’t been blatantly interrupting her to order another drink.
“Your turn for the first-date spiel,” he said.
Uh-oh.
“I get one more question,” she said, stalling for time. “Tell me one thing about you that nobody else knows.”
“That nobody else knows?” He pursed his lips. “Don’t know that I have one of those. I’m not really a deep-dark-secret kind of guy.”
The admission had been off the cuff, but there was something in the way he said it—something that made her think he did have hidden depths but wasn’t about to let anyone near them.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Fine. Tell me something that almost nobody else knows. Something that’s not on your standard first-date script.”
He took a sip of his drink as he thought about it. “I hate the Yankees.”
She was oddly disappointed that his confession was so tame. “So you’re like, what … a Mets fan?”
“Not really. I’m more of a football guy, but I don’t hate baseball in general. Just the Yankees. It would take the apocalypse to get me to set foot into that stadium again.”
“Gosh, that sounds reasonable and mature. Any reason? Or just the usual stupid boy stuff?”
“I just can’t stand their uppity my-shit-don’t-stink routine. I’ve seen the whole organization up close, and it’s everything that’s wrong with sports today.”
“You know, don’t you, that there are millions of rabid Yankees fan who would probably have a heart attack at that perhaps unfounded statement?”
“Yup. You never said it had to be a reasonable confession.”
“Gotcha,” she said with an amenable nod. “I’m going to pretend I found all that interesting.”
For some reason that made him grin. “If I were to dig really deep, I might be able to say that I irrationally blame the Yankees for ruining a good thing in my life. Even though common sense tells me I made the decision all by my adult self.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. “What did the big bad baseball team make you do?”
“Let’s just say they were the start of the derailment of my intended life trajectory.”
Grace whistled. “Deep.”
