Page 25 of #Moonstruck

“Hi. So your brothers seem ...”

“Overprotective? Completely insane? One banana shy of a bunch? Yeah. That’s them. They’re so annoying. Can’t live with them, can’t dispose of their bodies without drawing suspicion.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “It must be nice to feel loved like that.”

“I feel smothered. Or, more accurately, brothered.”

That got me a small smile, but he fell silent. Where he’d pretty much driven our conversation earlier, now he was waiting to hear whatever I had come out here to say.

Problem was, I had no idea what I should say.

“How did we get here?” I finally asked.

“Well, I drove my car, and I’m pretty sure you came in that thing that at some point was a van.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was literally the most handsome man I’d ever met in real life, he had to be witty, too. It would have been so much easier to ignore him if he’d been dumb and not funny. “No, I mean how did we go from me being horrible to you and yelling insults and now I’m your opening act?”

He took a step toward me, and my body swayed in his direction. Like it wanted to ignore my head and do whatever stupid thing it wanted to.

“I think you and I remember that night differently. You weren’t horrible to me.”

“I was. I apologize.”

Another step toward me. “I’m the one who should say I’m sorry. I thought you were using Diego to get to me. It’s happened before. I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted me or that you were playing some game. You’ve made it pretty clear you’re not interested.”

My confused, raging hormones and I decided it was a very bad thing we’d made him think that.

Now he was so close that I feared slightly for his physical safety, seeing as how we were in full view of my siblings. My chest felt so tight, like all the air in my lungs had turned solid, and I could no longer breathe.

“When you confronted me, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever spoken to me that way. I wasn’t upset. I thought, ‘Here’s a real person who is treating me like a real person.’ You made me feel like a human being again.”

Ryan reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and when his fingers brushed the top of my earlobe, I felt the molten lava of his touch everywhere—even in my ankles.

“You’re shivering again.” He whispered the words close to my mouth, and I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and let him kiss me.

Which was dangerous. “Don’t,” I said, stepping back. “If I’m going to go on tour with you, no more talking about shivering or being beautiful or anything like that.” My voice shook, along with the rest of me. “We have to be professional colleagues. Nothing more. I—I have rules. Important rules. That are important.”

“Okay. If that’s what you want. We should shake on it.” He held out his right hand, but I knew what would happen if I touched him. Spontaneous combustion, most likely.

“No thanks.”

That made him smile like he knew something I didn’t, and whatever he knew was hilarious.

“Good night, Maisy.”

“Good night, Ryan.”

I had just opened the door to the diner when he spoke.

“Before you go, I did want to tell you that I enjoyed our first date.”

“What?” Was this some kind of reverse psychology? Act like we’d already dated so I’d go on a real date to prove we hadn’t?

“I asked you to come eat with me. You showed up. We ordered food. I paid for it. We talked and got to know each other better. Date.”

“That was not a date,” I responded, but realized he was kind of right. He had ninja-dated me, and I hadn’t even known it!

“You’ve already broken your rule. You should try breaking it again.” He turned off the alarm on his car, and it chirped in response.

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