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“When. You. Ask. Nicely.”
I laughed through my nose. “No.”
She tried to get away from me, but with my knees on either side of her front tire, she didn’t have any leverage.
“Just get in the goddamn car,” I said after a while, shaking the bike a bit so Gemma lost her balance, stumbling off of it
“You’re so nice.” She hobbled up, and I picked her bike up. “A real prince.”
“And you’re a real pain in the ass.”
We stalked back to my car, where I somehow finagled the bicycle into the back, then drove to Gemma’s place in silence, only speaking for directions. She pointed to an apartment complex. “Right here is fine.”
When I stopped the car, she hopped out, and I took my time removing the bike from the back. She snatched it from me as soon as I lowered it to the ground. “You know your car is ridiculous, right?”
Leaning against it, I crossed his arms. That thorn in my side was feeling more and more like a knife. “Okay.”
“No one needs something with so many bells and whistles. It probably has terrible gas mileage.”
“Okay.”
Obviously annoyed, Gemma worked her jaw back and forth for a moment before she dragged her bike up the sidewalk. She had trouble getting it in the door, and I bit back a laugh. “Need help?”
“No.” For the fifth time, she tried and failed to hold the door open and get her bike inside.
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay, and get over here!”
“Okay.”
When I reached the door, I easily lifted the bike and motioned inside. “After you.”
Gemma’s second-floor walk-up apartment was a hole. Small, old, and in need of a good cleaning. I set the bike down and stuck my hands in my pockets, afraid to touch anything. “Nice place.”
“I’m sure that was sarcastic, but I will say thank you anyway,” she said, clicking on a few lamps.
How was there no overhead lighting anywhere? I blinked into the sudden brightness then spun in a slow circle. Sketches and watercolor paintings were scattered on the floor, and I admired one black-and-white image of a Joshua tree. She had a drying rack full of clothes sitting off to the side, a well-worn brown couch against the far wall, and an ancient television, which sat on top of what appeared to be a table made entirely out of painted soda cans. Homemade picture frames clung to the pea-green walls. I fingered one made from popsicle sticks. It held a picture of Gemma surrounded by little kids, who had paint smeared on their faces and hands. She was in the middle of the group with her arms around them, her own face beaming through streaks of orange and blue paint.
An angry hiss sounded from the corner, not even a foot away, and I jumped. A heap of fur lay on top of a bookshelf, and I slowly backed away from it. “What the fu—what is that?”
“George,” Gemma answered over her shoulder, opening cat treats. The lump of gray fur leaped down to the floor, and she petted its head.
“Whatis it?”
“A cat,” she said as if it should be clear.
On cue, the thing rolled around to glare at me, one-eyed and ugly.
Gemma picked him up. “This is Mr. George Clooney. I rescued him.”
“I hate cats.” I backed farther away, my hands up. “I don’t trust them.”
George Clooney bounded into another room after what sounded like an offended hiss.
“That’s ridiculous. What if I said I don’t trust…” Gemma coasted her gaze around the apartment as if she could find the end of her sentence on the walls. Then her eyes landed on me, and she waved her hand down the length of my body. “I don’t trust anyone who wears short-sleeved button-downs?”
“That’s the best you could come up with?”
