The outerwear mummy grinned. “Yeah. The Screaming Taste Museum got snowed out of the city last night and they needed a place to do their show. It was this or nothing. Good luck finding a parking spot, though. They’re, like, the best, you know?”
“Right. Thanks,” Shane said, rolling up his window and looking at Bellamy. “Do I even want to know what the hell a Screaming Taste Museum is?”
She laughed. “I doubt it, but if you figure it out, I don’t think I need to know.”
He released a slow exhale. “I’m really sorry. It seems I promised you something I can’t deliver.”
“Well, that leaves you in a jam, my friend, because I am still starving,” she said gravely.
God, that whole serious-face thing he did back at her was really endearing. And sexy. Did she mention wildly sexy? He looked borderline worried, and guilt kicked her mouth into gear.
“Shane, I’m kidding. Well, not about being hungry. But this is no big deal. We can always pick something up and go back to the resort if you want.”
He shook his head and laughed, pulling to the exit. “Bellamy, this isn’t Philly. You can’t just hit up Pietro’s for a couple of calzones on your way home. Unless you like McDonald’s, your options for eating out around here are slim and none, and slim is having a weird rock concert in its dining area right now.”
Bellamy pulled away to look at him, and despite the warning voice in the back of her mind that said it was none of her business, she let her question off the tip of her tongue. “Did you go to school in the city or something?”
It would explain how he’d known about Butcher and Singer the other day, and the reference to Pietro’s. God, everybody who had ever lived in Philly had horked down a pie or two at Pietro’s. The pizza was legendary.
Shane’s body went rigid in the driver’s seat. “Why do you ask?”
Well, she’d taken a step and landed smack in the middle of what looked like Shane’s biggest sore spot. She decided to tread carefully, but tread nonetheless. “Not too many people know about Pietro’s unless they’ve been there. I just thought—”
“No, I didn’t go to school in the city,” he said, cutting her off.
“But you’ve been there.” Her gut told her it hadn’t been on the occasional weekend jaunt down the mountain, either.
“It’s been a while.” His voice made the weather outside look downright balmy.
“Do you want to talk about why you hate it so much?”
“No.” Silence stretched around them like a blanket of thorns.
When he didn’t elaborate, Bellamy nodded. “Okay.” After a minute that felt more like an hour and a half, she decided to go with her gut. “Shane, I’m not really sure what I said to make you uncomfortable, but whatever it was, I’m sorry.”
He snapped his gaze to hers, his eyes looking almost black in the diffused streetlight from the parking lot. “Jesus, Bellamy. I’m the one who should be apologizing. It’s not you, I just—”
Before he could finish, she snatched up his hand and squeezed it hard enough to cut him off. “Let’s make a deal. I won’t say anything about the city until you feel like talking about it just as long as you don’t ever, ever utter those three words to me again. Fair?”
Shane blinked, shadowy lashes playing against his skin. “I feel like an ass. It’s just not something I like to talk about. With anybody.” His fingers tightened around hers, and he lifted their hands up so hers rested just under his lips. While the serious look he’d given her when she’d teased him earlier had been open and sexy, the expression he had on now told her not to pry. So he wasn’t a concrete jungle kind of guy. Big deal.
She could live with it if he could.
“A wise old man once shared his sage wisdom with me, and I believe it applies here. What was it that he said…oh, right. No apologies.” The corners of Bellamy’s mouth hinted upward in the slightest of smiles.
“I’m only twenty-nine, you know.”
Shane’s bemused expression made her want to chuck any plans for dinner so she could have him instead, but she held her ground.
“And wise beyond your years,” she teased, enjoying the glower that was doing a poor excuse of covering his lopsided grin. She lifted a brow at him, smiling. “Now, do my stomach a favor and head back up the main road toward Joe’s Grocery, would you?” She didn’t let go of his hand as he lowered it to the armrest between them, keeping her fingers twined around his.
God, they felt good there.
“Let me get this right. You want to go grocery shopping at seven o’clock on a Tuesday night?”
Bellamy’s lips curved into a devilish smile. “If we can’t go to dinner, then dinner is going to come to us instead.”
“Cart or basket?” Shane asked, surveying the front of Joe’s Grocery.
Bellamy chewed her lip before caving in. “We’d better go with a cart. I need some stuff for my room back at the resort, too. You’re the car guy, so you can drive.”
He pulled a cart from the row where they were lined up by the entrance. “So, what’d you have in mind for dinner?”
“I’m not sure yet. I want to let the food talk to me.”
“You want to what?” Shane laughed.
Bellamy’s face flushed with heat, and she walked over to the first row of produce, lined up in baskets by the front window. “I want to get a feel for what’s good, what I’m in the mood for. Sometimes I don’t know until I see it. Like the other day when I was in here, the Brie and figs looked so good, I just couldn’t say no.” She scanned the pears and navel oranges carefully, but gave them a reverent pass-by.
“So, the food talks to you?” Shane creased his brow, trying not to crash the cart into anything as he watched her moving along. Damned if she wasn’t just as captivating as the first time he’d seen her here.
“Well, not literally. I’m not crazy.” She stopped to give him a healthy nudge, then reached past him. A flicker of interest passed over her face, like a light on a dimmer being turned up to a soft glow. “But look. These are just so pretty.”
Bellamy’s fingers brushed over a handful of deep red fruit, the look on her face shifting from honesty to pure, pared down beauty and back again. She scooped one up, cradling its weight in her palm. “See? The color is perfect. And here,” she murmured, reaching down to place the ruby-colored globe in his hand. “It just feels right. So, no, this pomegranate isn’t sprouting lips and starting casual conversation with me right here in the produce aisle, but it’s speaking to me all the same.”
Shane knew that he should be saying something to Bellamy, making some kind of witty remark or flirty banter. At this point, even a grunt or nod would do the trick. But he couldn’t.
He was too busy wondering how the hell he’d met a woman who looked at food—hell, at anything—the exact same way he looked at cars, and trying with all his might not to fall in love with her on the spot.
“Sorry. I’m sure that just sounds weird to you.” She slid the pomegranate from his hand and gently put it in the cart, then turned toward the apples with a sheepish look that bordered on embarrassed.