“Do you know what the best part of being an adult is?” There was an unmistakable gleam in his eye.
“What?” She had to admit, her curiosity was piqued.
He sat down next to her and pulled the towel away with an exaggerated flourish. “You can eat dessert for dinner.”
On the tray in front of her were chocolate bars, graham crackers, and a bag of marshmallows.
“S’mores?”
“Yep. I also have some cheese and an apple. But what fun would that be?”
His enthusiasm was contagious and Paige found herself playing along. “So an indoor camp-out?”
“Exactly.”
She half expected his next idea to be building a pillow fort out of the couch cushions.
“I figured you’d want to keep an eye on these guys, so I thought we could get some blankets and pillows and just make a night of it.”
Not quite a pillow fort, but close enough.
“Unless you think it’s a bad idea,” he quickly added. “But you might get cold upstairs without—”
“No, no,” she interrupted. “I think camping in sounds great.” She knew the grin on her face was far from playing it cool, but she didn’t care. In front of her were a hot guy, puppies, and chocolate. Life didn’t get much better than that.
They took turns roasting marshmallows on a straightened wire hanger Lucas dug out of the front closet. Paige couldn’t remember the last time she made s’mores. Girl Scouts, maybe? When they were done, she was sure she’d exceeded her sugar intake for the next month if not two. “Those were…”
“Fattening? I know. But sometimes you’ve got to live a little.”
“I was going to say delicious. And I couldn’t agree more.”
Lucas leaned closer, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, and all at once her insides felt as gooey as the marshmallows. “You’ve got…”
“Yes?” The word was more breath than sound.
He reached up, cupping her cheek with his hand while his thumb stroked her bottom lip “…a bit of chocolate.”
“Oh.” Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Don’t worry.” He held up his now chocolate-streaked thumb as proof. “I got it.”
“Thanks.” Usually her radar was a lot more accurate than that. Although to be fair, this guy was a hard one to read. One minute he’s telling someone on the phone what a pain in the ass she is, and the next he’s flirting with her. Then he’s got a raging boner for her, then he’s acting like they are in grade school. And not the age where you play spin the bottle either. More the age where you’re all buddies and actually sleep at a sleepover.
“I can keep an eye on them if you have anything you need to do.”
Whoa, talk about a change in direction. Paige wasn’t sure if Lucas was suddenly trying to get rid of her or just double-checking that she really wanted to be there. Either way, she decided to go with honest and direct. “As it just so happens, my calendar is pretty clear,” she said. And it was. She hadn’t had so much as a text, let alone a call. That either meant the office had burned to the ground and Sammy was afraid to tell her or he was handling everything just fine. Something told her it was the latter. She’d bet her business on it. And in a way, she had. “Plus with the power and internet out…”
“Ah, good point.” An awkward beat passed before he asked, “Is there anything you’d like to do?”
Nothing came to mind. “It’s your house. What would you usually do about now?”
He shrugged. “Watch TV. Play video games.”
She rolled her eyes. “What is it with men and video games?”
He raised a brow. “That was rather sexist.” While she knew he was teasing, he was also correct.
“Touché,” she said, echoing his earlier response.
“So you’re telling me you’ve never played Xbox or PS4?”
“Let’s just say eye-hand coordination isn’t my strong suit.” She’d failed at most sports and sucked at playing piano. “But I am pretty good at Wii, if you’ve got one of those.” Who was she kidding, she was pro level when it came to bowling. Pro at electronic bowling. Was there a more pathetic declaration ever made? Thank God she hadn’t said that out loud.
He smiled. “Afraid not.”
Right, because that was popular like what, ten years ago? Smooth, Parker. Might as well have asked him if he had a Nintendo 64. Or even better, Atari. “Cards?”
“I don’t think I have a full deck.”
Now she was the one who raised a brow. “You do realize you left yourself wide open for a serious burn.”
“Serious burn? Are we back in high school?”
“No, because then we would be playing Wii.”
He laughed. It was a deep, warm sound, and all at once Paige knew she’d do just about anything to hear it again.
“It’s just as well you don’t have a deck.”
“Why, are you a sore loser?”
Her face flushed. “And an even worse winner.” Maybe it was years of playing cards with her grandmother and her older brother, but she and Marty had taken gloating to a new level.
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“I may or may not have a fairly obnoxious celebration dance.”
“Spared by the missing jack of diamonds,” he teased. A moment of silence passed between them, and once again, Paige thought Lucas might kiss her. It was a perfect moment—the fireplace bathing them in a warm glow, the rain tapping a hypnotic rhythm against the windows. Lucas leaned closer, but when his lips parted, all he did was speak. “We could just talk?”
“Talk?” Was this guy for real? Since when did a man suggest talking as a way to spend an evening? And what the hell was wrong with her radar? Had it been so long since a man made a move on her that she had forgotten how to read the signs?
Lucas nodded. “Seems like we’ve been doing that just fine for the past ten minutes. Maybe we could try to keep the streak going.”
“Like tossing a ball back and forth as many times as we can without dropping it?”
“As long as your competitive nature doesn’t apply to conversation as well.”
“Do I strike you as the type who would make everything a competition?” She was, but how could he have already figured that out about her? So far they’d mostly spoken about food, dogs, and rain.