Page 17 of RomeAntically Challenged
“If it’s the right person who came along?” He shrugged. “Why not? But I don’t need to string someone along to figure out if they’re right for me. I don’t play games with the people in my life, making them jump through hoops in order to figure out where they stand. Nah, that’s childish and pretty shitty, if you ask me.”
Annie saw a flash of fresh pain cross Emmitt’s face and realized that beneath the confident swagger lingered an uncertainty that drew Annie in. Her gut said he’d been played by someone he trusted and cared for. Based on the new sadness lurking beneath his words, that someone had deeply hurt him. And recently.
The caretaker in Annie wanted to ask if he was okay, but the pragmatist in her understood better than to pry. The more she knew about him, the more human he’d become, and the harder it would be to kick him out of his own house.
After a night like tonight, a smart girl would cut her losses and go straight to bed. Only Annie was tired of playing things smart, because instead of wishing him good night, she said, “Okay, wow me with your observation skills.”
If she was going to steer clear of charming players, then she might as well learn how to recognize the signs.
“Oh, you’ll be wowed,” he said and she rolled her eyes. “You don’t believe me? Then let’s make this a little more interesting. If I wow you with my superior observational skills, then tomorrow I get the bed.”
As far as she was concerned, Emmitt wasn’t going to be living here come tomorrow. So what was there to lose? “Wow me.”
“This is going to be good.” He rubbed his hands together like a kid in a candy store. “You have a thing for British mysteries, Shemar Moore, and reality dating shows.”
“Knowing what’s on my Hulu account doesn’t make you observant, it makes you a snoop.”
“No rules were stated at the beginning of the game as to how I come by my information. But I will lay off your horrific taste in television and get back to what a romantic you are.”
“Of course I’m a romantic,” she argued. “I was recently planning my own wedding. I’m sorry to say, Emmitt, you’re just another man whose talents have left me wondering why I bother.”
“You’ve clearly been hanging around the wrong men,” he tsked. “I was going to say, your romanticism goes far deeper than dream weddings, Goldilocks. Most women would jump at the opportunity to blow a few grand on a new dress, yet you went in search of the perfect tailor to alter your grandma’s. You also wanted to share her wedding date, which tells me she was not only the most important person in your life but that you never had to guess where you stood when you were with her.”
He went silent, studying her in an intense way that kept Annie shifting on her feet.
She was practically bouncing on her toes when he finally said, “I imagine that without her, you’ve felt a little lost throughout this whole ordeal.”
“Of course, I still miss her. It doesn’t take a psychic to determine that.”
“What was her name?” he asked, the question causing a wave of warm emotion to roll through her.
“Hannah,” Annie said on a swallow, wondering why the simple exchange of sharing her grandmother’s name felt so intimate. “And lots of women choose to wear their grandma’s dress. It’s a pretty common tradition.”
“You didn’t mention your mom wearing it, so I don’t think it was a tradition thing. I think you did it because you wanted Hannah there with you and that was the closest you could come,” he said, and her stomach did a little flip of uncertainty, because the guy was nailing it. “But clearly wedding talk isn’t wowing you as much as it’s upsetting you.”
“I’m not upset,” she lied, refusing to show him how hard it still was to talk about her grandmother. “I’m tired.”
“Then I’ll speed this up. You prefer baths but take showers to save on time. You have an appreciation for unexpected pairings, like pepperoni and green olives, dipping chocolate in jelly, oversized T-shirts and tiny panties. You’re a neat freak, but I bet you have one place where you say screw it and throw order and tidiness out the door.”
Her expression must have given away her surprise, because he laughed. “Is it the inside of your purse? Or maybe it’s your car, littered with wrappers, empty water bottles, and probably even a few of those madeleine cookies floating around in case of emergency. Wherever it is, I bet it’s a complete disaster. You are as much a romantic as a pleaser. You think nothing of sacrificing what you want in order to make things easier for other people, which is why you’re okay with being called Annie when you prefer Anh.”
A raw and familiar vulnerability swept through her, filling her heart before spilling over and burning like acid on metal everywhere it touched. Either he was incredibly intuitive or everyone else in her life was blind. And she wasn’t sure which upset her the most.
“You’re staring,” he said roughly.
“Just trying to figure you out is all, but since that would likely take longer than a PhD, and I have an early morning, I say we call it a night.”
“I guess even bleeding hearts need their sleep.”
“I guess they do.” And before she did something stupid, like climb onto his lap and ask him to tell her a fairy tale, Annie flipped the switch, plunging the room into darkness.
Oh boy, was that ever a bad move.
She should have made Emmitt turn off the light after she locked the bedroom—with her safely on the other side. Then she wouldn’t have noticed the way his Calvin Kleins seemed to grow brighter—and bigger—by the second. Perhaps her eyes were merely adjusting, still fully dilated to take in as much light as possible.
Or maybe her luck had finally hit rock bottom, because his undies were, without a doubt, glowing. The more her eyes became accustomed to the dark, the more confused she became, until she could hold back her laughter no longer. Emmitt of the “superior intuitiveness” Bradley wore a pair of glow-in-the-dark boxers.
She laughed as the shapes took form. “Are you serious? Kittens and rainbows.”
