“You can, but you won’t.” I removed my own wallet from my purse and slapped down my card.
“We appear to have reached an impasse.” His green eyes shone with suppressed laughter.
“It’s not that hard to figure out. We split the bill based on what we ordered and split the tip fifty-fifty.”
He held my gaze. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
I shook my head, my hair flying around my shoulders. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Fine.” He sighed and motioned for the check to be brought over. “You’re stubborn.”
“Yep. It’s one of my better qualities.” I grinned and all but accosted our blushing server as she brought the bill over with a card machine. She’d obviously heard our conversation because the wallet contained two receipts with our bill split.
I pulled them out with another grin in Noah’s direction and selected mine. I added the tip and handed it to the server with my card for her to charge it.
She swiped; I signed. Then she moved onto Noah who did the exact same thing, all the while glaring at me across the table.
I was trying not to laugh.
I really was.
I would bet a hundred bucks that he’d never met anyone like me before. Not that I was tooting my own horn—I knew I was what normal people called ‘unique.’
I mean, my best friend fed raccoons, so compared to her…
I was only a little strange.
We both stood at the same time, and Noah held the door for me on the way out.
“Thank you,” I said softly, stepping out into the almost-stifling heat.
“Well, I saved your life. I think I can hold a door for you.”
“Are you going to bring that up every single time I talk to you?”
“Maybe. Like I said, it’s one to tell the grandkids.”
I side-eyed him. “Slow your roll.”
“I didn’t mean our grandkids. Just my grandkids in general.”
“I don’t think it works the same if I’m not your wife.”
“Nah, I’ll be like Ted from How I Met Your Mother. You’ll just be one of the women who is not The Mother.”
I hopped into the truck and, when he’d gotten in, too, said, “You do know that Ted was the absolute worst character in that show, don’t you?”
CHAPTER EIGHT – REAGAN
Mahalo For Nothing, Netflix
He looked at me as if I’d kicked his puppy. “No way. Barney was the worst.”
I shook my head as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I’m sorry, but you are one hundred percent wrong. Barney was a terrible person, but he owned it. Like, he basically broadcast it across the entire city that Barney Stinson was a jerk. Good guys don’t have an entire wall of porn in their apartments, Noah.”
He opened his mouth to speak. “None I’ve ever met,” he said after making a turn. “But Barney treated women like shit. How can he not be the worst character?”
“Even Lily is a worse character than he is.”
“Okay, wow, Ted is one thing, but now you’re hating on Lily?”
“Yes!” I laughed, turning to look at him. “She was mean and manipulative and forced everyone to do what she wanted. Not to mention, her baby’s first trip out of the apartment was to a bar. A bar.”
“All right. The first trip thing, I’ll give you.” He paused. “Actually, all of it. You’re right. She was fucking mean.”
I nodded. “But still not as bad as Ted.”
“What did Ted ever do to be a bad character?”
“Well, he made us sit through all that drivel for that bullshit ending, for one.”
“Technically that’s on the writers.”
“Whatever. It was Ted’s story.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay. He cheated on Victoria with Robin and lied to Robin about it. He bugged that tattoo doctor until she literally had no choice but to go out with him. He constantly compared every woman to Robin even though she’d made it blatantly obvious that she wasn’t interested. He made his friends feel guilty for being in relationships when he wasn’t. He argued with Robin over Quinn’s apartment when he was the one who made things weird in the first place. He ran away with Victoria when she was going to get married—”
“Klaus was leaving her, too,” Noah argued. “They weren’t suited for each other.”
“Your mistakes are not justified by the actions of other people. It doesn’t matter if someone else is doing the same thing you are. It doesn’t make it right.”
“Is your name Reagan or Aristotle?”
“Depends if you want to be sitting in a truck with an alive, twenty-six-year-old woman with great tits, or a dead Greek genius.”
“Does the dead Greek genius talk back?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever spoken to one to find out.” I raised my eyebrows. “Would you like to find out?”
“No. I was just wondering if that was the only way I’d win this argument.”
I grinned. “I didn’t win yet. You haven’t agreed that I’m right.”