“Just keep eating.” He’s struggling not to laugh again. “That piece of lettuce stuck in your beard will look amazing as a headline photo.”
“Argh.” I scrub at my face, but Émile takes my hand and settles it in his lap.
“Relax, I’m joking. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe amp up the love a tad. Make those fuckers believe you can’t get enough of me.”
I reach over and lift his taco so he can take a bite, only it isn’t anywhere near as romantic as I’d been picturing. The shell cracks and half the toppings drop out of the bottom and back onto the wrapper.
“Ah, ooops?” I say.
“That was for the thing about the lettuce, wasn’t it?” Émile asks dryly, swiping his face with napkins.
“No, but let’s say it was. We’re even now.”
“Sure we are.”
“Shh.” I steal the napkins from him and take over cleaning his face. “Let me be in love with you. This is the kinda thing they do in those romcoms, right?”
“You’d be more of an expert in those than I would be.”
“Then take my word for it. This is totally, one hundred percent, what they do in those things.”
“Noted.” He slides closer, closing the distance between us. “And what about this?”
Then Émile plucks a dandelion from the ground beside us and tucks it behind my ear. His fingers linger for a second, golden-flecked gaze locked on the flower, before meeting mine again. “Is that a romcomy thing to do?”
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
I swallow, and aim for a playful grin. “I hate to tell you this, but tucking a flower behind the ear is romcom code for falling in love. You’ve done it now. You’re going to be stuck with me.”
His fingers graze my neck as they drop. “And somehow that isn’t the threat you’re trying to make it out to be.”
“Surprising, considering I dropped salsa in your lap.”
“What?” He springs back to inspect his pants and it only takes a second for him to work out that I’m full of shit. “Hilarious joke.”
“You fell for it.”
“And with that, I think I want my flower back.”
“Too late now.” I spare him one more mischievous look before turning back to my food. “I don’t make the rules.”
Chapter 21
Émile
Damn Christian and his damn romcom rules. I can’t get what he said off my mind, and while there’s no way I’m in love with him, it doesn’t stop me from wishing we’d never made this deal to begin with.
If we hadn’t, would we have taken the time to actually get to know each other? The thing about spending an entire day with him, surrounded by his friends and their inside jokes, and Monopoly Monday that I’m also roped into, is that I’ve gotten to see more of him than, well, anyone I know. He doesn’t hide behind snark and banter. He doesn’t try to conceal his flaws. When his friends tease him, he turns a delicious shade of red, fidgets with his nose ring, and then hangs his head so none of us can see him smile.
Except I haven’t left his side all day and I’m counting those smiles.
One, for the tacos he spilled on his shirt.
Two, for him missing the step into Madden’s truck and smacking his face on the seat.
Three, for the story of them first meeting Auntie Agatha, when Christian tripped over a bush and ended up grabbing her tit.