“Do you want to come in for a drink?”
He looked at the house and turned back to me. “In there?”
“Well, yeah, that was what the ‘in,’ in that sentence meant.” I rubbed my hands along my rapidly chilling arms. “But it’s cold out here, and I’m not going to beg you. I just thought we could talk about everything we learned at dinner.”
“‘Course you wouldn’t beg.” Declan smirked, flipping the kickstand into place. “You only do that under very specific circumstances.”
I narrowed my eyes, cheeks burning brighter, hoping I could pass off my blush as windburn. “You know what, I take it back. Go home.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. Can I please get that drink?”
I gave a dramatic sigh. “Only because you begged.”
It was him narrowing his eyes now, but that smirk of his stayed.
* * *
“Looks like I’m out of rum. And whiskey. And wine.” I walked into the living room, extending a glass of Pepsi to Declan. As he accepted, I said, “Sorry, I’m not a big drinker.”
“That’s okay,” he murmured, eyes drifting from my bookshelves that lined the far-right wall and the adjacent one behind the sofa. “This is gorgeous, though. These are all yours?”
“All but the one there.” I gestured to my borrowed copy ofThe Subtle Knifeby Phillip Pullman on the coffee table as he approached the shelves. “I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid, but I lost a lot of them over the years. Only that bottom row is stuff I’ve had for a long time. Most of this, I started accumulating in college.”
“Damn.” He ran his finger along the spines of my hardback, special edition ofLord of the Rings. I grimaced at the fact that he hadn’t washed his hands first, but pushed that to the back of my mind. Glancing at me over his shoulder, he gave a smile. “No way you’ve read them all.”
I scoffed. “And why not?”
“Because there’s got to be a thousand books here.”
“One thousand, seven hundred, and twenty-four, actually.”
“And you’ve read themall?”
“I have.”
He huffed, sipping his drink and looking them over. “And here I was thinking I was well read.”
I laughed and lowered myself to the last seat on the couch. “I’m sure you are. But I work in a library, and there’s a lot of downtime, so…”
“Fair point.” Turning to meet my gaze, he smiled. “And no TV?”
Ria had pawned it a few months ago, then pouted when I bitched her out for it, saying, “You never watched it anyway.” Which was true, hence why I hadn’t replaced it. But I loved my sister, and if something were to sprout between Declan and me, I didn’t want him to think poorly of her.
“It broke six months ago,” I said. “I just haven’t gotten around to replacing it.”
“I was thinking about getting a new one. You could have mine, if you want it.”
“You don’t have to do that—”
“It’s going out to the garbage otherwise.” He shrugged, propping himself against the armchair by the window. “May as well get some more use out of it first.”
I smiled. “Alright. Sure. Thanks.”
He gave one back, holding my gaze. When it stretched on a bit too long, he cleared his throat. “So talking about what Guinevere said may not be a bad idea.”
Ah, yes. “The elephant in the room.”
He still held his smile, but it grew a bit uncomfortable. Carefully, he set his drink onto a coaster atop the side table. He scratched his chin, tugging his beard downward. “It’s a lot to wrap our heads around, isn’t it?”