“So, what brings you here?” The Band Aid approach—I’ve never had much training in subtlety.
“Oh.” I’ve taken him by surprise with my bluntness. It seems the great Keats McAllister was expecting some preamble. “Well, I, uh, thought we could discuss the wedding.”
I’m relieved he doesn’t bring up the kiss, but also strangely disappointed. “You mean, the one you’re trying to sabotage?”
“I like to think we’re both doing that.” He flashes me his grin that crinkles his nose.
I love that grin.
I hate that grin.
“You up for dinner?” He asks me so casually that I don’t get the vibe at all that he’s asking me out.
“Sure.”
“All right, let’s grab something from the supermarket and talk while we make it.”
He starts walking to my local grocery store and it takes me a few seconds of staring at his sexy retreating form before my feet and brain catch up to the fact he’s with me again.
“You know, until recently, I thought you had more of a life than constantly inviting yourself to dinner at my place,” I say when I catch up to him at the stack of baskets near the entrance.
“Mom gets anxious if she’s alone in the house overnight, and Byron’s at Gatton—I can’t not come home, or return too late. Kind of kills my social life, as you can imagine. Why don’t you have plans on a Friday night?”
’Cause I’m pathetic. “Cause when you’re sober, everyone else at clubs seems stupid.”
That grin again. “Well, when you’re not looking to hook up, it’s the same. Ever since I started Operation Get Isabella Back, I figured it’d be cheating on her if I went out cruising for chicks with my buddies at work—those assholes are always out on the prowl, and when you’ve given up other women cold turkey and you’re not getting any…”
I stop walking, wondering whether I heard him right. “You’re not having sex?”
A mother pushing around a trolley with a two year old in the seat frowns at me. Especially after her little girl shouts, “Have sex!”
Keats grabs my hand and pulls me towards him. “Sorry, she has Tourette’s,” he says with an apologetic smile to the offended mother. He leads me away towards the relatively empty fresh produce section. “Keep it down, Hay-gen. I’d like to hold on to the last vestiges of my manhood, if only by reputation. I’m already so whipped, I haven’t had a sex drought this long since Year 10.”
I shake my head trying to comprehend another myth about him that’s been blown out of the water. “You’re telling me, you haven’t had sex since you started going out with Isabella last August?” My eyes dip down to his crotch before I realise what I’m doing.
“Hey, hey, eyes up here,” Keats says, waving his hands in front of him as if shooing a wayward chicken. “It hasn’t been as long as that…although it feels like it. You and I only started this plan in April.”
A scoff escapes my lips, not that I would’ve stopped this particular one. “Two months? You’re whinging about two months?” I walk away to choose an orange. It’s about the only fruit I don’t mind eating.
“Almost three,” he defends. “Why? How long has it been for you?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“I told you mine.”
I shake my head.
“I thought you had Booty Call Neil on speed dial?”
I hit him on the arm. “I do not have B—Neil on speed dial.” I almost said Baby Daddy Neil, though Keats probably thinks I was about to use his nickname for my pretend friend with benefit.
Keats just laughs off my protest—annoying bastard.
“You got lettuce?” he asks me.
I shake my head.
He lifts one head then another in the palm of his hand, repeating the process about five times before he settles on the second lettuce he tried. “The heavier they are, the more layers they have.”
I nod. I’ve learnt from the McAllisters that fruit and vegetables need to be weighed. It seems that with almost every individual piece of produce, the heavier it is for its size, the better.
“How about avocado?”
“Just assume I have nothing in my fridge as usual. What are you making?”
“Tacos. I feel like Tex-Mex tonight. Is that cool with you?”
“As long as you’re the one cooking, I’m fantastic,” I say before I remember what Isabella told me about Keats and their first date.
Surely, this isn’t the fabled Taco Test?
***
I can’t think of anything sexier than what I’m staring at right now—Keats in his suit pants and fitted business shirt, his tie off, wearing my frilly apron while he slaves away over my hot stove as he cooks dinner for me. I could get used to this.
“For a player, you’re very domesticated, you know that?”
“I used to have my own place, remember? Here, try this.” He turns around and extends the wooden spoon to me. I look at it for a second before I lean forward just a little and touch my lips to the meat sauce, licking my lips as I pull away. “Too spicy?”
“Is it normal for my tongue to feel numb?”
He raises a brow at me—have I offended him by not gushing over his culinary skills?
“It’ll even itself out when you mix it with the other stuffing. That lettuce looks a little too big. You want the pieces to fit in the shell.”
I look at the strips he got me to cut. There’s a lot more to chopping up than I thought. Why couldn’t I just grate everything like I did to the carrots and cheese? “You weren’t this fussy during Home Ec. class.”
“I wasn’t exactly there to cook.” He turns the heat down on my stove, then bends down on his haunches to turn off my previously unused oven. He peers at the tacos that have been cooking for the last ten minutes. I blatantly ogle his butt
