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“I don’t know where you put it.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I know where I’d like to put it.”
I laughed. “I meant all the food you ate. Each of your servings was twice the size of mine, and you still had room for two desserts. Do you eat like that all the time?”
“Only if the food’s good. If it’s not, I have just enough to fill me up.” He smiled. “I guess the same can be said forotherthings. If I like it enough, I want to devour it.” Beck reached out and tangled a lock of my hair around his finger. “You ready to get going? I actually have something to do at ten, but I’ll drop you on the way.”
“Oh. Okay.” The little horns of jealousy wanted to poke out. Did he have a date? I didn’t want to send mixed signals, so I buried my urge to pepper him with questions. “Sure. And you don’t have to drop me at home. I can grab an Uber or the subway.”
Beck peeled a bunch of hundreds from his billfold and tucked them into the padfolio. “Oh no, I’mdefinitelydropping you off.”
I thought there was something odd in his tone, but he stood and held his hand out to help me from the booth, so it was quickly forgotten. At least until we walked outside.
A super-stretch limousine was parked at the curb, and a uniformed driver leaned against it. He stood as Beck walked over.
“Mr. Cross?”
“Yes.”
The man went to open the back door, but Beck shook his head. “I got it. Thank you.”
I looked at Beck. “This is for you?”
“It’s for us.”
“It’s a little excessive, isn’t it? An Uber would have worked.”
His eyes sparkled. “Maybe. But an Uber doesn’t have a privacy panel. You said you were feeling adventurous, and this, technically, is a car.”
My eyes widened, and my jaw dropped open. “Are you saying you ordered this so I could…”
Beck tapped my chin. “Just like that. Nice and wide.” He opened the back door and motioned for me to get in.
“Are you really this crazy?”
He winked. “I prefer to be called adventurous. Now get in.”
CHAPTER 18
Beck
“GIGI!” MADDIE RACEDto Gram’s hospital bed and climbed up. She had on her usual Saturday outfit of shorts and a T-shirt, with her green Girl Scout sash across her body displaying her seventeen badges.
“Easy, baby. Gigi is feeling better, but you need to be careful.”
Gram also looked a heck of a lot better. It helped that she was sitting up in bed, already dressed in street clothes, with a full face of makeup on.
Gram frowned. “Don’t listen to Captain No-fun. What’s shakin’, pip squeak?”
Maddie pointed to her great grandmother’s eyes. “I like your eyeshadow. It’s sparkly.”
“Everything is better when it sparkles. If I could eat glitter for breakfast and shine all day, I would.”
Maddie flashed her tiny teeth. “I want to sparkle, too.”
“You do? Well, grab me that makeup bag on the end table, and we’ll fix you right up.”
Watching my grandmother with my daughter reminded me so much of my mom and me—not that she’d made up my face with glitter, but she’d had a way of passing on experiences without making me feel like I was a little kid.
