The Chemistry of Love(65)

“Bird Girl or Bird Nerd,” I told him. “You?”

“Brace Boy.”

“Because you had braces? Unlike most people?” I questioned sarcastically. Kids were so unimaginative.

“Yes, but I also had leg braces because I was pigeon-toed.”

That made him seem even more down-to-earth. “My grandpa would have thought your turned-in feet were adorable.”

He laughed. “He would have been the only one.”

“Not very popular with the ladies?” I asked.

“I didn’t kiss a girl until I was a sophomore in high school.”

“Wow. Even I got kissed before then.”

“At space camp?” he asked with that grin of his.

Yes, but that didn’t seem like information he needed to have. “So, what—you’ve spent the last fifteen or so years making up for lost time?”

“Something like that.”

“Honestly, I find it hard to believe that every girl you met was too stupid to see . . .” My voice trailed off as I realized that I was close to making an idiot of myself.

“See what?” His tone was casual, but there was something there, just beneath the surface, that felt anything but casual.

Because how could those women have not looked beyond something temporary to see the amazing man underneath?

I bet when he got hot, they were all kicking themselves.

He shared with me why he never had a long-term relationship. “Every marriage I’ve ever seen has been about convenience. For status or money. I’ve never dated a woman who didn’t expect elaborate gifts and expensive vacations.”

“I want to tell you that I don’t care about that stuff, but you gave me a mixer and I’m not about to give it back to you in order to seem noble or something.”

He laughed.

I added, “I would offer to return it, but we’d both know that I wasn’t serious. I should probably get credit for considering it, though.”

“For the whole 1.2 seconds you thought about it?”

I moved my Kylo Ren token five spaces and gave Marco the rent money I owed him. “There are women out there who would think you’re a pretty great guy, money or no money. You have a lot more to offer than your bank account.”

“Thanks,” he said quietly, adding my credits to his growing pile.

We talked about what we’d wanted to be when we were younger. I told him that I’d always wanted to be a chemist—that when I was little, my dad would do all kinds of home experiments with me. Hot ice. Elephant toothpaste. Alkali metals in water. “I thought he was magic. I still think of chemistry as being like magic.”

“Why cosmetics?” Marco asked.

“My mom loved makeup. She really wanted to be an actress, which Grandma thought was a waste of time, so she ended up getting her degree in library science. That’s how she met my dad—Grandma wanted to set him up with my mom, so he went to the library to ‘check her out’ as he liked to say, and they hit it off. When she got off work, she offered him a ride, but she had a flat tire. He came to her rescue and changed it for her, and that was kind of it. She didn’t even mind that it had been sort of a setup. They got married really quickly.”

“That’s sweet,” he said.

“Anyway, I was obsessed with her things when I was young. I would read all the labels for her moisturizers and lipsticks. I wanted to understand what the products were, to make those sorts of things myself. Like I could better understand my mom by understanding the things she used. She was so beautiful, and I wanted desperately to be like her.”

Marco held the dice up in his hand, about to take his turn, but he stopped. “You are.”

Unfortunately, I had chosen this moment to take a drink, as talking so much had dried my mouth out. I choked on my water. I coughed it out, and he looked concerned. He leaned forward like he was going to help me, but I held up my hand to stop him.

“I’m fine,” I said when I could breathe again. “You don’t have to say that. I’m going to read and study that ridiculous binder you gave me. I’ve said yes. You don’t have to win me over. I’m going to help you.”

“Anna, you are beautiful.”

He sounded so honest, but it felt almost painful for him to say it. “Because I improved myself with some color on my face and in my hair?”

He shook his head. “You were beautiful before that. You didn’t improve anything. You only made it a little different. And before you argue with me, you being beautiful, that’s . . . what did you call it? Just an objective fact.”

“No fair using my own words against me,” I said softly, but he grinned, and I felt weak-kneed.

“If I was the man you were in love with, I wouldn’t have wanted you to change a thing.”

“But you’re not.”

“I know,” he said in that cheerful way of his, only it didn’t sound quite as authentic as it normally did.

“What about you? What did you want to be when you grew up?” I asked, returning my attention to the game. There was something going on here. Something one-sided, I reminded myself. I really liked him as a person—I didn’t need to make this awkward.

“I never wanted anything other than being the CEO of Minx and then CEO of KRT after that.”