“So, what are you planning on doing? Knocking the omelet guy off his station at the breakfast buffet?”
“You were always a wise ass.” Picking up his drink, he regards me over the rim of the glass. “I can make you breakfast tomorrow morning in LA.”
“You weren’t joking about leaving tonight?”
Shaking his head, he elaborates, “I’ve got the production company plane at my disposal.”
“And you want to leave?”
“I got what I came for.” He appears very sure of himself.
“What you came for?” Am I a what?
“Who I came for,” he corrects himself. “Or is that whom?”
“The former.” I’m fighting a smile.
“Yup. You are definitely still Rosie-Blowsy.”
“I don’t like when you call me that.” That took me over a decade to say to him.
“Hmm… so, let’s see, what can I call you… Rose Garden, Rose Grows, Rosie Toesy, Coming Up Rosie, Second-Hand Rose.” He stops on that one.
Second-Hand Rose? What the actual... my eyes widen at the last one, and he laughs. It’s clear he’s having a good time teasing me, but I guess that is to be expected, after all, the guy creates snarky animated characters.
Reaching out, he cups my left cheek, slowly grazing his thumb just below my cheekbone and softly zigzagging it down my cheek. “But I think I’d rather go with Rosie Cheeks.” Swoon.
And in a nanosecond, I’ve gone from wanting to smack the guy to wanting to have sex with him in the woods on the other side of this wall.
“So, will you come back to LA with me, Rosie Cheeks?”
“Seriously, Danny, we’ve known each other like ten minutes.”
“And more than few years and way too few kisses and I’ve saved you from your…” he pauses.
“You can say it,” I assure him. “My asshole ex.”
“Your asshole ex who threw up on your beautiful green dress at the prom.”
“You remember that?”
Nodding, he adds, “Maybe I wasn’t the one who was actually the derelict.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“I remember a lot, Rose. I remember the Adam Levine picture in your locker. And that wasn’t even the locker I broke into.” He smiles. “I remember your purple backpack and the Red Vines you used to share with me. I remember when your finger was broken playing volleyball in eleventh grade.”
I rub my right pinky.
“Yes, that finger.”
“And you know what I remember most of all?” As his hand goes back to my cheek, his thumb gently resumes a slow, stroking motion and those butterflies I once felt, as I turned toward his desk to see the same handsome smile, are once again fluttering. “What I remember most is you giving me money for lunch, when I didn’t have any.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Yeah, well, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that my dad had lost his job. I used to hit you up to borrow money. I didn’t want anyone to know and I knew you wouldn’t judge me.”
I’m trying hard, but I can’t recall having lent him lunch money.