Page 38 of The Love Lie
“I’m taking a break.” She shrugs and settles down on a lounger with her dinner plate. “So, Cooper. Tell me. What’s the most unattractive thing about you?”
“Unattractive?” He sits across from her with a sly smile and grabs his own plate. “Why? Need a deterrent?”
She forks a cherry tomato and lobs it at his face. He catches it smoothly and pops it into his mouth with a wink. She rolls her eyes.
“Come on, just give me something. You pick your nose and eat it. You had an STD. You have explosive diarrhea every time you drunk order a three-bean burrito from the bodega down the block, but they taste so good and the alcohol strips away every ounce of your self-preservation that you keep doing it anyway.”
He arches a brow. “No to all of the above, though that last one sounded oddly specific, Cuj.”
“I’m talking hypothetically.”
Hypothetical my ass.“Sure you are.”
“There has to be something. Anything.”
“I…” He pauses to think and takes a bite of his fish. It’s good, but he can’t wait for a nice, juicy steak when he goes home. He was born and raised in cattle country. This seafood thing isn’t for him. “Oh, here’s something. I can’t sing for shit.”
She scrunches her face while she chews, then rocks her head from side to side as if weighing the offering. “It’s not quite explosive diarrhea level, but it’s a start. So, let’s go. Have at it.”
“I never said I’d demonstrate.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Come on. Turn me off, Cooper Kelley. I dare you.”
He offers her a flat stare. She pouts her lips in an innocent, pleading expression that’s annoyingly adorable. Those doe eyes blink up at him, once, twice. And, dammit. That’s all it takes. The Devil himself would sell his soul if she asked with that face.
He clears his throat.
The opening lines of “Friends in Low Places,” a classic and the first song that comes to mind, force their way up his throat. He cringes internally but keeps going at the sight of her widening smile. A twinkle lights her eyes. As soon as he makes it through the chorus, he stops and she launches into a slow clap.
He palms his face with a groan. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Fuck you,” she charges with a laugh. “That was endearing.”
“You need your ears checked.”
“Oh, I heard it. Very…dying mountain lion.”
“Shut up.”
“Beyoncé ain’t got nothing on you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves her off. “Your turn.”
“No way. That didn’t count.”
“Like hell it didn’t count.”
“I want something embarrassing, like really, truly, down-to-your-core embarrassing. Yours was…eh. I’ve been to too many Korean Karaoke bars at two a.m. Half the people I know sound worse than you.”
A thought pops in.
He mentally shakes it off, but not quickly enough. She notices. Hunger fills her eyes like a wolf’s on the hunt.
“Spill.”
