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And with that, he picked up a slice of pizza and half of it disappeared into his mouth. Watching him devour his food, she realized his parmesan/pepper offer wasn’t merely about food, but everything about him. He showed her what she could have, made it look as appealing as he could, then set it aside, forcing no more pressure, all the while making it known she could still have it any time she changed her mind.
"Aren’t you hungry?" he asked, pausing to eye her untouched food. His gaze lifted, concern thick in his voice.
Not want
ing him to realize she’d been admiring him, she said, "I was just making sure that combination agreed with you. I was ready to perform CPR in case you keeled over."
He snorted. "This might surprise you, but it’s perfectly normal to mix and match these two seasonings. I’m sure millions of other pizza-eaters in the world do the same thing. It tastes good."
"Hmm." Peeling off a section of pepperoni from her slice, she popped it into her mouth. "I’ll just take your word for it," she answered as she chewed.
He watched her with glittering eyes as she chose another pepperoni. Pointing it out, he asked, "Do you always eat the topping first?"
At her nod, he shook his head. "See. That right there is strange to me. I don’t have the patience to eat one pepperoni at a time."
She glanced at his half-consumed slice and chuckled. "I noticed."
"You’re probably not a crust-eater either, are you?"
"Nope." After swallowing the last pepperoni on her piece, she finally took a nibble off the end.
"I call dibs on your crust then. I love dipping them in the marinara sauce."
Thinking about the intimacy of him eating her crust after she’d had her mouth all over it, she swallowed her next piece wrong and had to snag her drink from the table.
After polishing off his helping, Drew started piling more pizza on his plate. "So, tell me something about you," he said as he licked off a drop of sauce he’d smeared on his finger.
She straightened, alarmed by the question. He wanted to talk about her? She didn’t want to talk about her. She didn’t want him to know about her past. Not yet.
"What do you want to know?" she hedged, hoping her expression didn’t show how worried she’d grown.
He shrugged. "I don’t know. Everything. Start with what you do every day. You have a job, right?"
Her shoulders eased and she let out a quiet sigh of relief. Oh, thank God. An easy question. "Yes, I have a job."
Rolling his eyes, he added, "Of course," for her, since her tone implied as much. "So, what do you do?"
"I work for a telephone directory company. I handle selling the advertisements in the yellow pages."
"Interesting," he murmured. "I hadn’t thought of placing an ad there yet. But I might now." Winking, he asked, "Think you could get me a discount on a full-page ad?"
"No way," she said. "I get commission."
He laughed. "Okay then." Setting his elbows on the table and resting his chin on his hands, he leaned forward. "So … have you always wanted to sell ads for a telephone directory?"
"Have you always wanted to be a photographer?" she countered, growing feisty.
He wrinkled his eyebrows as if that was an absurd question. "Well, yeah."
She laughed. "That’s right. You want to see your pictures in National Geographic."
"You remember," he said softly.
Clearing her throat at the sudden familiarity that sprang up between them, she glanced away. "Why didn’t you follow that dream?"
"Mandy," he answered so suddenly, she frowned and sent him a questioning look.
His smile looked forced. "She took it hard when I told her I wanted to travel. In fact, to keep me around, she offered me a loan to start a photography studio here in town. She’d also inherited the house I live in now when our grandma died. So, she deeded it over to me as an added incentive."
