Page 31 of Love or Leave

She stared at him for a moment, wondering how much she wanted to reveal, then realized that it didn't matter what he thought of her. He'd already seen her yell at her ex in thestreet while acting shamelessly spiteful, then brought him to the nerdiest place on earth.

She had nothing to lose by being fully honest with him.

"Relationships," she said in a near whisper. "Guys in general, sex… I don't really have a clue."

Antonio's eyes bulged, and he reared back.

She immediately regretted saying anything and shook her head, looking down at her feet. "I'm never telling you anything ever again."

He huffed a laugh. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you to be so… forthright."

"Forthright?" she asked with a smile.

He nodded. "I'll use that one next time I play Scrabble."

Their eyes connected when she looked up, but he quickly looked away.

"I'm surprised by you," he said. "Your insides don't match your outsides."

"Huh?"

He stared back at her, his gaze flicking between her eyes then dropped to her lips. "You're beautiful," he said.

She stopped breathing and her eyes widened so much they felt dry.

"And obviously brilliant," he continued. "You have every reason to be confident, but then you say things like that, and it surprises me."

She stared at him in shock for a moment before the bartender broke the silence.

"Here's your beer," he said, placing two frosty glasses on the bar.

"Thank you," she said, picking up a glass and taking a sip, hoping the cold drink would calm her hot face.

"I shouldn't have said that," Antonio said, shaking his head. "I can just imagine what Max would do to me if he knew I was here with you, let alone telling you how beautiful you are."

She forced herself to take a breath but couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm glad you said it."

He huffed out a long breath and grabbed his beer, then tilted his head toward the doors. "Should we go in?"

She nodded and walked to the door, but stopped before going and whispered to him, "If I blink twice, go alone."

A slow smile spread across his face. "Okay."

They walked in and sat across from each other at a table with another team already set up, and one of their opponents dealt. It only took a few rounds for her to read the cards and their opponents. Once she figured them out, they handily won round after round until they'd eliminated their first team.

After the easy defeat, their opponents stood and left, and Antonio leaned across the table.

"You can count cards?"

She nodded. "It's only half a deck."

He sat back with a smile as the next team arrived. On the second-to-last round she knew his hand was absolute shit, but he was forced to make trump clubs. Still, it was better than hers and the other teams, so she blinked twice at him.

"I'll go alone," he said with zero hesitation.

She smiled and set her cards down, then sat back and watched as he took each hand to win the game. The other team stood immediately, angry over him winning with such a shitty hand. Once they were gone, they both burst into laughter.

"That was amazing," she said.

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