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Horror.
I snort and smash my face to his chest.
“So not funny,” he says.
“It’s a little funny,” I say into the sweaty pillow of muscle on his chest.
“Go away, Smuckers!”
I’m just laughing. “I honestly don’t know if that clinches your Most Eligible Bastard status or destroys it,” I say.
“Don’t even,” he says, rolling on top of me, caging me.
I snort. “And to think I imagined you didn’t like dogs.”
“That has to be the last joke you make about that.” He leans down, biceps bulging.
I frown. “The last? Isn’t that a little extreme?”
He kisses my neck. “I mean it. Or I might retaliate in the most excruciating way.”
“I might like it,” I say. “But okay. Last joke.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Henry
It’s after seven by the time we sit down to eat. I pour more wine and watch Vicky pick up her fork.
“You think the sauce survived?” she asks.
“I know it did.” I set down the bottle and stand behind her, rest my hands over her shoulders. “I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised with this dish.”
She looks up at me. “You just think you’re Mr. Awesome.”
“Kind of.” I kiss her cheek.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She swirls the noodles in the sauce. “The talent portion of Most Eligible Bastard contest,” she jokes.
I lean in closer. “I do believe I aced the talent portion of the contest earlier tonight.”
“Hmmm,” she says. “Good point.”
She slips the forkful of fettuccini between her pretty lips.
A sheen of pure wonder creeps into her gaze. “Oh my god,” she says.
“What’s that?”
She gazes back up at me, brown eyes sparkling. “Parmesan garlic taste freak-out.”
I sit down. We eat. A lot. She actually has seconds, like the best date ever.
After dinner we take Smuckers out, strolling around in search of dessert. We decide on a bag of warm baklava from a food truck. We take it into Central Park and sit on a bench, feasting while we watch an extremely acrobatic man dance to a fiddle and a snare drum.
Vicky makes exactly zero jokes about what I’ll refer to as The Smuckers Incident. In fact, she doesn’t have to; all she has to do is look at Smuckers and then look at me with an utterly innocent expression, and the joke is in the air.
“Fuck off,” I growl.
