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She glances up, a hesitant smile touching her lips. “I heard there was a quiz later.”
I laugh, sliding into the booth. “I eat here all the time; ask me anything.”
Without thinking, I snag her glass of Coke and take a slurping sip through the straw. Just like I used to do.
“Hey!” She wrinkles her nose and reaches for the glass. Our hands brush when she wraps her hand around it and tugs.
I snatch my hand back, realizing what I did. But I fall back on the one way I know how to deal with her.
“Oh, you know you love having my lips touch where yours did.”
She narrows her eyes and kicks my leg.
“Ow! Shit!” I laugh through the pain. Even though it’s masochistic on my part to keep teasing her—she’s a fucking turn-on when she’s mad—I can’t help it.
Our eyes meet and she bites her lip, but the smile she tries to hold back breaks through. “You deserved that.”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Okay, fair enough. If it makes you feel better, you can have some of mine when it comes.” I rest my folded arms on the table and lean forward, dropping my voice. “I don’t mind having your lips wrapped around my…”—her blue eyes darken to a navy and her lips part—“straw.”
A little puff of air escapes her mouth, and she leans back in her seat. She slaps the menu shut and levels me with a look. “I thought if we were going to make this work, we’d keep things professional.”
“We said friendly. I’m being friendly.”
“By drinking my Coke without my permission?”
I lean back and stretch an arm out on the top of the booth. “Lia, you need to lighten up. This is supposed to be fun. It’s Santa’s workshop, for God’s sake. Not some ad campaign where an overpaid athlete is trying to convince me to drink the latest formulation of a sports drink.”
Her hands drop into her lap and she looks away. I study the line of her jaw and the slope of her neck. Being winter, she’s covered head to toe, but I drink in the glimpses of skin I can see.
I wonder if her skin beneath the lobe of her ear is as soft as it once was and if it still drives her crazy when she’s kissed there.
You’d think after more than ten years, my desire for this woman would have flamed out. But it burns hotter than ever.
Breaking up with Lia Gray was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I know, watching her, that it was the best thing I could have ever done for her.
Even if it means I’ve had decade-long blue balls for her.
She looks back at me and sighs. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Our eyes meet and she swallows. “Yeah, I can understand that.”
“I apologize.” I hold out my hand, palm up, across the table. “Friends?”
She holds my gaze and there’s a swirl of emotions I can’t decipher in their blue depths. Once upon a time I could read her like a book.
Some thingshavechanged after all.
“Friends.” She lays her hand in mine. My fingers have a mind of their own because they wrap around her slim ones, her skin soft and warm.
“Hey, guys.”
Charley appears at the end of our table, my drink in her hand, her eyes wide.
Lia snatches her hand back and squirms in her seat, her cheeks a beguiling shade of pink. “Hey.”
Charley tosses her cousin a knowing look and sets the drink on the table. “Ready to order?”
