Page 29 of Heart Stopping
"Or hurting his daughter," I said.
"That too," he agreed. "So, who's the pretzel guy?"
He waited until I took a sip to ask that. I had to swallow while trying to think of how to respond.
"He's a friend," I said.
"He wants to be more than a friend," Archer observed.
"He might," I said evasively. "Are you trying to keep tabs on me?"
"Just an observation," he said. "I was going to come over and say hello, but you know the saying: two in every three people wish the third one would go away. I figured it was better to wait until he was gone. I didn't want to interrupt your date."
"It wasn't a date. Not exactly," I said, scratching behind my ear. I had a flower tattooed there. A lily. For no other reason than I liked them.
"He looked like he thought it was a date." Archer sipped his coffee. "You want me to talk to him? Get him to back off?" He was a little burlier than Cass, with a similar, dark air. An undercurrent of barely controlled violence. Archer knew his way around a knife and wouldn't be remorseful in drawing blood.
"No, I don't want you to talk to him," I said quickly. "I like him. He's sweet."
"Does he pick up his own socks?" Archer asked.
I gave him a funny look. "I have no idea. I've never been to his place. Why do you care about his socks?"
"I read a study once, where if women started to pick up a man's socks at the beginning of a relationship, they'd be doing it until the end of it. Therefore, a guy who already knows how to pick up his own socks will be less of a challenge." Archer made it all sound so reasonable.
"Do you pick up your own socks?" I cocked my head at him.
"Is that your way of asking me out?" He drew his brows together. "So you can find out if I can pick up after myself?"
"That's some mental gymnastics," I teased. "I already know you can pick up after yourself. I've seen how meticulous your cleaning is."
"Are you asking me to marry you?" His expression was perfectly deadpan, only his fingers moving as they gripped his coffee cup. The rest of his arm, fully covered in a sleeve of tattoos, was perfectly still. "Because I sound like the perfect mate from your description."
"Did you read that online too?" I asked.
"Probably. The Internet is an endless source of information and entertainment." He brought his cup to his lips, looking back at me before taking a sip. "Three and a half stars. Not bad, but not great."
"The Internet is an endless source of something," I said, taking a sip of my own coffee. "For the record, no. I'm not asking you to marry me. I have no intention of marrying anyone." I waited for him to quote some random statistic, but he didn't.
"I have to confess, I was following you," he said. "Not just because of pretzel man."
"His name is Cassius," I said. "Cassius Titmus. Why were you following me?"
Instead of answering, Archer pulled out his phone and tapped Cassius' name into the screen.
"I didn't tell you that so you could stalk him," I said.
"Is this him?" He turned the phone around so I could look. "He has a golden ratio face."
"He has a what now? Yes, that's him." Cass was wearing a suit and sitting in front of a computer, looking like he wished he was anywhere but having his photo taken.
"Golden ratio," Archer said as if that would explain everything. "It's a mathematical proportion that determines attractiveness. You have a golden ratio face too."
"Um, thanks? You're not so bad looking yourself." It seemed like the thing to say.
"My face isn't symmetrical enough." He placed his phone down.
"I feel like I should say you shouldn't put yourself down," I said. Now I was looking more carefully, his nose did tilt a little to the left. So did his chin. One of his ears was bigger than the other. Not noticeably so, but still.
