Through stop-and-go traffic.
At eight o’clock at night.
“This is a little different from home,” he said, finally popping the seal on the conversation again and turning down the song.
I smacked his hand away. “It is a crime to turn down Lizzo.”
His brows rose. “Seriously?”
I didn’t even dignify that question with a reply. Instead, I just ignored him as the chorus went on, as the hair-tossing lyrics went on, as the anthem hit its peak, and then when it had slowed and blended into the next song, I turned off the radio, glanced at him expectantly.
“I was just saying that this traffic must be different from home.”
I nodded. “Not from the big cities I’ve lived in, but from Darlington, definitely. I think the big hoopla at the last city council meeting was that we were adding a tenth stoplight in town.”
He chuckled. “That’s a little different from L.A.”
“I can imagine.”
“Where else have you lived?”
“Pardon?” I asked, finally seeing the exit that would take us off this godforsaken freeway, and pushing, shoving, and cramming my car into the next lane—much to the anger of the cars behind me, their horns a cheerful melody—so we could exit.
“You don’t drive like you’re from a small town.”
I smiled. “Well, I’ve done stints in Denver, Salt Lake City, and a year in Chicago.”
“Why does the last sound like you’re chewing glass.”
“Because it’s a beautiful city, but it’s damned cold.” I shuddered. “I barely survived my first—and only—winter there.”
“Says the girl who grew up in snowy Utah.”
“Says the girl who is definitely not feeling the windchill.”
He laughed, and I found myself doing the same. Despite the chip on my shoulder, despite the alarm bells blaring in my mind, telling me to gather up armor and slap it on every part of me, to protect every vulnerable inch.
I laughed.
And for a moment, I forgot he was a big, fancy movie star and I was just a small-town woman, who dreamed of Disney and glazed donuts and a vat of coffee, black.
“Did you just grow up here then?”
He nodded. “In California, yes, but in the northern part, a suburb south of San Francisco.” A shrug. “Not a small town, exactly, but certainly not a big city like down here.”
“How’d you get into acting?” I found myself asking.
“How’d you get into being a police officer?” he countered.
“Tit for tat?”
A smile that hit me right in the gut. “Seems only fair.”
“My dad was a police officer, seemed fitting to follow in his footsteps.”
“What about your mom’s footsteps?”
That question stung. He couldn’t have known that, of course, but it still burned like acid dripping down my skin. I cleared my throat. “Nice try,” I said, forcing my tone to be light. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“I got into acting because I needed to escape my childhood.”
I blinked, his reply pretty much the last thing I’d expected to hear, and certainly not with such a neutral tone. “That’s a bomb to drop in the middle of the getting-to-know-you conversation,” I murmured.
“You mean, you didn’t know?”
“Know what?” I asked, my brows pulling down.
“Know about my childhood.”
The light turned red, and I took the opportunity to study him closely. “Why would I know about your childhood?”
His gold eyes flared.
But he didn’t answer me, and then the light turned green, and I needed to pull forward.
“Because it seems like all of America knows about it.”
The soft sentence took me by surprise, and I thought carefully, trying to recall if I did know something. But . . . I liked a good action flick now and then, had certainly seen this man in a film or two, but I didn’t know anything about his personal life.
“I’m not one for gossip rags,” I said. “Darlington has its own gossip patrol, and I have enough to keep track of with Lilibeth’s mail thief, whoever toilet papered the elementary school playground, and the Milk Caper.”
I don’t know what he’d been planning on saying before I’d finished.
But it certainly wasn’t the same thing as what came out of his mouth next.
“The Milk Caper?” he asked.
“Don’t ask,” I told him. “It’s a long, drawn-out story, and one that’s barely interesting.”
“With a name like the Milk Caper, I doubt that.”
Regardless of his doubts, we were turning into his driveway, and I was saved from having to explain about little Tommy Brighton—all of six years old—and his mysterious milk guzzling abilities. The supermarket hadn’t been able to figure out where the milk was going—Tommy had been taught to clean up after himself, like a good kiddo—and so the gallons (yes, gallons) of milk had disappeared for weeks on end.
Until his dad, Mark, the owner of the grocery store, had set up a hidden camera and had caught his son in the act in between school and his afternoon nap.
Ah, to be a police officer in Darlington.
Though, I had to admit, I liked tracking down a Milk Caper much more than the drug busts from a few years back.
So long as I wasn’t the one who had to clean up the toilet paper from the playground.
I pulled up to the gate, turned to him.
“It’s 7-7-1-9-2,” he said, and I lifted a brow. His lips turned up. “Consider this my play at getting a beautiful woman to have dinner with me and to maybe go on a walk afterward.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.”
He laughed and squeezed my hand where it rested on the steering wheel. “I can get out here,” he said, popping the door and unbuckling his seat belt.
I quickly put the car in park.
Then, for some reason, I got out.
Later, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint why exactly, except to say that perhaps it was some kind of instinct bred from years of training,
