What kind of music do you like?
Who is your favorite actor?
What are you looking for in a partner?
What are you passionate about?
What is your dream job?
He looked back up at her. “Really?”
Her chin tipped in a defiant angle that didn’t bode well for him. “Since I know where you’re from originally,” she said, “I’ll ask you what makes you sad.”
“Questions like these.” He brandished the paper. “You don’t seriously think these questions will help a person determine whether or not they want to go out with someone?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t like my questions?”
“I have a hard time believing they’re your questions.” He sat back and studied her, his hand on his glass. “Tell me the truth. You got them online.”
“They’re icebreaker questions,” she replied.
Which was answer in itself. He nodded to the piece of paper on the table. “That’s what you really want to know about me? What kind of music I like?”
She crossed her arms. “Well, if you liked something I hated I’d want to know, because what if we moved in together and you played heavy metal all the time and I couldn’t stand it?”
She said that with a little more heat than someone defending her getting-to-know-you questions. “Who played music you couldn’t stand?” he asked, studying her.
“The guy I divorced,” she practically hissed.
Her alarm went off.
“Switch seats, gentlemen,” she called out, glaring at him.
He didn’t move. When the next guy came up beside him, Jamie simply pointed at the next table. “Go ahead and take the next seat, mate.”
“Sure thing,” the guy said, going on to the brunette who sat there. Jamie watched to make sure that everything was okay there, and then he checked on Erik. The kid was seated with a woman who was a little older than him but who had a kind smile. Not that he seemed to notice that. The kid had lost the relaxed feel he’d had with Lottie, looking tense and closed off.
Jamie frowned. That was no good.
Rachel leaned in. “What are you doing?”
Shaking his head, he returned his attention to her. “Getting to know you.”
“You had your three minutes.”
He smiled. “I take longer than three minutes, love.”
A furious blush lit her entire torso—it was adorable.
Shooting him a death glare Coco would have envied, Rachel picked up her mobile and jabbed at it. “Time starts now,” she called out to the room. Then she put her hands on the table and faced him.
“Why ‘the guy you divorced’ instead of your ‘ex-husband’?” he asked before she could say anything.
“Because he’s notmyanything.” She picked up her wine and took a sip, obviously trying to calm herself down.
He wanted to take her hand and soothe her, but this was her event and she was trying to be in charge. He’d already disrupted her sense of order enough—yesterday and today—so he waited until she set the glass back down and asked lightly, “Was his musical taste that bad?”
She gaped at him, and then she burst into laughter.