Page 57 of Hello Trouble

I quirked my lips into a teasing smile. “So you got to speak to a hubcap in French today?”

He snorted, like he was surprised at the joke. “Italian, actually.”

“Have you seen ‘Cars’? I watched it with Maya one time, and now I give all the cars I see voices.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re shitting me.”

“No. Look at that hunk of junk out there.” I pointed at an older truck with a smashed-in bumper and rust working its way over the hood. Making my voice sound old and haggard, I said, “These old wheels just don’t turn like they used to... Stay off my asphalt!”

He chuckled low.

And then I pointed at a cute yellow electric car, putting on a vocal fry. “I’m like, so happy summer is coming! I am over all this spring rain. It totally messes with my wax job.”

Hayes laughed again. “My motorcycle probably sounds like Magic Mike, then? It’s sexy as hell.”

I bit my bottom lip, deciding to be brave. “In that case, I think it sounds like you.”

29

HAYES

Della was flirting with me?

Mixed with her silliness and then the nervous glance of her eyes to the table, it was... so fucking cute.

Della didn’t play games like a lot of women, doing the coordinated dance that brought two people from strangers to lovers sharing a bed. She was a friend, a comedian, a confidant, and a conspirator all at once.

It made me want to hide her away from the world and keep her all to myself. Take her away from this restaurant so I could kiss her in private, thoroughly. Until she was purring like the pretty vintage Ferrari I worked with earlier today.

But then Agatha interrupted, having the audacity to ask us for our orders. I glanced up at her, almost surprised we weren’t alone, like the world outside of Della still existed.

We couldn’t place them fast enough for my liking, but once it was all written in that little notepad, Agatha left us alone once again. I had Della all to myself, even in this crowd of people. She kept her phone in her purse, not texting and distracted like most people. Selfishly, I wanted those pretty green eyes, her attention, her thoughts, on me and me alone.

She was getting all of mine. We were in this crowded diner, smells and sounds coming at us from every direction. But I didn’t notice any of them. Just her.

“Can I ask about your tattoos?” Della asked, surprising me.

“You just did,” I countered.

She gave me an annoyed roll of her eyes, continuing with her question. “What do they mean?”

“Which one?” I replied, stretching out my arms.

She grazed her fingertips over the ink on the back of my knuckles.

I looked down at her fingers tracing the ink. “These mean I was tired of seeing scars from fights when I was young and dumb.”

She froze for a moment, and I wondered what she thought of that. I wasn’t ashamed of my past, but I wasn’t proud of it either.

Instead of pressing for more information about my fights, her fingertips trailed up to the sunflower covering the back of my hand. “My mom’s favorite flower.” My voice was husky thinking of the dream from earlier that day.

My skin shivered as she moved her fingertips up my arm to a tattoo of a tiger stretching across my forearm. “This one?”

“I was drunk at a friend’s tattoo shop.”

She frowned. “It’s against the law to tattoo inebriated people.”

“Inebriated people with big mouths,” I corrected with a smirk.

---