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“Sure thing,” he said, grinning. “How much do I owe you?”
“Hmm?”
He lifted the pizza a couple of inches and motioned with it.
“For the pizza. With the discount, it’s…?”
“Oh! Right. Umm.” I pushed a couple of buttons on the register and then looked back up into his dreamy blue eyes. “Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” he asked. “That’s not ten percent. That’s like twent—”
“Fifteen, even,” I said, cutting him off. “Discount for first-timers too.”
“Sofia,” Amara began.
“Thank you for helping me, Amara,” I countered.
A few blinks later, she got the hint, shrugged, and went back into the kitchen, muttering to herself. Meanwhile, Kieran produced fifteen dollars, and I took it from him, putting it in the till and shutting it.
“Thanks again,” he said.
“Anytime,” I said and absolutely meant it.
As he walked away, I let my eyes roam over his body until he was through the door and then crumbled into the counter. Amara appeared beside me and poked me in the back a few times, but I refused to move. I had my eyes shut tightly and was letting the little movie reel of a memory of his face play in my mind.
“Sof,” she said, “what the hell was that?”
“Did you see him?” I groaned while keeping my head on the counter.
“I did. He was gorgeous. But what was all that about discounts?”
“I just… panicked, okay?”
“I got that,” she said. “You sounded like me when Barry Wiseman came in that time.”
“Oh Jesus, not the Barry Wiseman story again. He’s not that cute.”
“Yes, he is!” she said.
“Not like that guy!”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “But he’s older. Barry is twenty and has a motorcycle.”
“And that guy was a fireman, Amara. He’s the walking, talking subject of entire genres of fantasies.”
“Well, he was very attractive. Did you give him your Snap?”
“What?” I asked. “I don’t have a Snapchat.”
“You don’t have a…” she began and then sighed. “Your number? Anything?”
“No…” I said and then stood in the withering gaze of my little sister. “Look, it’s been a while since I’ve found anyone remotely attractive. Especially since I moved back here.”
“Go home,” Amara said. “Papa said to send you home. It’s what I was coming to tell you. That and to get my phone because Barry might have snapped me.”
“Fine. I’m out. If he comes back to complain about something, though, I want you to call me. I will come back over to handle it.”
“Yes, Sofia,” she said. “Now go.”
Not waiting around for Papa to change his mind, I grabbed my stuff and left out of the front door, trying to look around casually to see if Kieran was still around for some reason. When he wasn’t, I walked back to my place and threw a pan on the stove. Before my body completely crashed on me, I wanted to get something cooking.
As the cast iron heated and I gathered my ingredients, my mind went to Kieran Duggan, and I began to daydream about what he might look like underneath the fireman’s polo. It was a lovely vision. One that was only marred when I absentmindedly grabbed the handle of the cast iron, subsequently burning the same hand I burned earlier.
A few expletives later, I was back to cooking and back to wondering if he had a girlfriend.
4
KIERAN
Sofia.
That was her name.
I was actually pretty proud of myself that I remembered her name. She was so stunning that my brain had short-circuited, and I was lucky to recall anything about the conversation besides her beauty. And her voice. Smokey, deep alto, and mysterious, she sounded like she had secrets that I wanted to learn.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her the entire way home. It was the quickest ten or so minutes I had ever driven, since I essentially put my mind on autopilot, and it was a straight shot down the road. Thankfully, I had already plugged my address into the GPS on my phone, or else I very likely would have passed right by my new place and up the mountain.
That’d be fun. Coming out of my haze with a cold pizza somewhere in the Carolinas. Would have made a hell of a story to tell Tony the next time I saw him.
Sofia. Something was different about her. Something fun, mysterious, sexy. She had a personality that intrigued me, and her stumbling over herself only made her adorable. But those eyes. They drew me in such a way that I had never experienced before. No one could bat their eyes at me and get me to do something, but I had a feeling she could ask me to build a stairway to the moon and I would give it a try.
I could see myself being enamored with that girl for a long time if I ever got the chance to take her out. Maybe next time I ordered a pizza, I’d remember to get her number. I didn’t want to be the guy who creeped on her on social media, especially since my own social media was as bare bones as it got. It just wasn’t my scene, and if I showed up on hers with a nearly blank page, I was pretty sure she’d make me for a weirdo.
