She huffs. “He is not a stalker. It’s just a coincidence that we ran into him at The Gravy Train too.”
“Yeah, he’s justcoincidentallystalking you.”
“Anyway,” she says, setting the pizza down on the coffee table and resuming her spot. She slides a couple napkins my way, then leans forward, popping the top of the delicious-smelling pie and grabbing a slice. “He delivers pizza at night now to cover his book-spending habit.”
I snort, reaching for my own piece. “Sounds like a nerd.”
“And when he saw my name come up on the queue,” she continues, ignoring me, “he took a chance and grabbed the order.”
I pause my pizza slice halfway to my mouth, looking over at her. “He knows your name?”
“Yeah?” She shrugs. “I go to the bookstore a lot.”
I put the slice back down. “I don’t know, Caroline…I don’t like that he just happened to show up at the apartment.”
“He didn’t justshow up. I ordered pizza. He was working. He delivered it.” She takes a bite of her pizza, chews, then wipes at her mouth with her napkin.
“Come on. You say this guy is at the bookstore every time you’re there. Now suddenly he conveniently works at our favorite pizza place we order from all the time?” I shake my head, biting off half my slice. “Sounds fishy.”
“You’re overreacting. Anyway, he just asked me if I wanted to get drinks with him on Wednesday. I said yes.”
“You saidyes?”
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Look, I’m used to your territorial tendencies, butyou’rethe one who said it was a good idea to get me laid and offered to help.Thisisn’t helping.”
That was before we kissed and it rocked my fucking world.
“Is this about the other night?”
Splat.
My pizza slips right from my fingers, smacking loudly against the hardwood floor, just catching the edge of the blue and gray rug we have under the table.
Thank fuck we don’t have carpet.
“Cooper!” She shoots off the couch, grabbing for napkins.
“What?” It comes out as a growl as I push to my feet, shoving the coffee table out of the way to clean the mess up.
“You got sauce on the rug. I’m going to have to scrub it now.”
“It’s not like I fucking threw it on the floor! It’s greasy and slipped.”
I stomp into the kitchen to grab a wet towel, annoyed.
At myself for dropping the pizza.
At her for saying yes to a date with some idiot after what happened between us.
And then again at myself for even caring about the kiss.
I grab a hand towel, wet it under the faucet, and make my way back out to the living room.
Caroline’s on her hands and knees cleaning up the mess I made.
