Page 46 of So Not My Thing
“That.” He pointed at her, like,Bingo.
I smiled. “Do you have siblings?”
He nodded. “I’m the youngest of three, but none of them act like that.”
“Doyouact like that?”
He looked mildly insulted, but before he could deny it, he gave me a half-smile. “Maybe I used to.”
“Kudos to you for growing out of it,” Chloe said. “We’re still waiting on Dylan.”
We ate the rest of the food, running out of room but still determined to leave no speck behind. But when the server appeared to ask if we’d saved room for dessert, I groaned. “No.”
“Not even a small one,” Chloe added.
“Even I’m not that ambitious,” Miles said.
The server took our plates and left a tray with dinner mints but no bill. Miles dug out his wallet. “Let me get the tip.”
Chloe shot him with an imitation of Dylan’s finger gun. “You bet, champ.”
He tossed another hundred-dollar bill down, and as we all pushed away from the table, I had the familiar feeling of wanting to hang out longer while simultaneously needing to run away.
“Do you need a ride?” I asked, not sure what I wanted him to say.
“No, I’m good.”
Disappointment chased relief.
Again.
I needed a name for this feeling. Maybe...insanity?
“I’ll get an Uber. Do we have any appointments I need to know about?”
I shook my head. “I want you to look at the place on Gallier again, but how would you feel about my getting an architectural rendering of what I think it could be?”
“Yeah, sounds great.” He held the door open for us. “Do we need to set up an appointment for that?”
“No, I already booked it,” I said, giving him a cheeky smile, “but he’ll need a few days to get to it.”
“Good job.” He held up his hands and looked at them. “Is this where I use ironic finger guns? I feel like it’s my turn to do them, but I get stage fright over finger guns.”
I fired a finger gun and clicked my tongue for extra bro factor. “I got your fingers covered, buddy.”
He gave a low whistle. “Expert level.”
“That and free dinners are the only perk of being Dylan’s sister. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
I waved at him then stepped from the curb, Chloe right beside me. She waited until we were out of earshot. “You’re heartless.”
I shot her a confused look over the roof of the car as I dug out my keys. “What are you talking about?”
“Poor guy was obviously trying to find ways to spend time with you, but you shot down all his excuses.”
“What? No.” But a prickle of pleasure skittered through my stomach as I wondered if she was right.
She rolled her eyes. “Call it my reporter’s instincts, or, I don’t know, living on this earth as a female for twenty-five years, but he was absolutely trying to get on your schedule again.”
