Drop Dead Gorgeous(58)

“You can be James Bond.” I point at him, and then myself. “I’m sticking with Velma. Jinkies!”

“Hmm, and there goes my idea of your being a ‘Bond girl’,” Blake teases, putting the car in reverse with a shake of his head like my weirdness amuses him. As we drive down the street, he tells me his grand plan. “I saw Yvette, the guy, and a red dog leave in his truck. But he was taking the trash out as we drove by.”

“Okaaaay,” I drawl out. “You’re not planning to break into the house while they’re gone, are you?”

Blake’s eyes shoot to me.

“Are you?” I whisper, horrified.

“No.” He shakes his head as if he’s not sure of that answer yet. “But I like that you’re thinking that way, my little daredevil.” I am so not a daredevil in any sense of the word, but it makes me wiggle in my seat that he called me that. “I’m thinking we grab their trash. Perfectly legal, and possibly informative.”

“Trash,” I repeat. My nose crinkles in disgust. “Ew.”

“Just hit the button to open the trunk. I’ll grab the trash,” he informs me dryly.

“Oh, okay then.” I nod agreeably.

“For someone who literally sticks their hands inside people’s bodies, you’re grossed out by trash?” Blake asks, disbelieving.

I shrug. “Everybody’s got their limits.”

He laughs but doesn’t say anything because he’s throwing the car in park and opening the door. I push the button he pointed out, and the trunk swings up behind me, scaring me even though I knew it was going to happen.

“Hurry,” I whisper-yell. Blake’s taking too long. How long is too long to steal trash? I don’t know, but this feels like it. People in the houses around us are probably looking out their windows, wondering what in the hell we’re doing and calling Jeff right now.

We’re going to get arrested. I know it.

But then Blake is running to the back of the car with two white bags and I hear a thud as the trunk closes. He hops in, and we take off like felons on the run from The Man. Well, no.

He puts it in drive and goes a respectable thirty miles an hour, easy as you please and acting like sugar wouldn’t melt on his tongue, he’s so sweet. But my heart is racing like we’re going one hundred and twenty around the track at Daytona with high octane in my blood.

“Oh, my God, we did it!” I shout, clapping my hands.

Blake chuckles. “Yeah, we did.” The air quotes are heavy on the ‘we’.

“Hey, I hit the button like you said. Fair warning, though, if we got caught, I was absolutely going to say it was all your idea.”

He nods like that’s to be expected. “Open the glovebox for me, would you?” I open it to find a perfectly organized set up with tissues, a tire gauge, the car’s owner manual, and antibacterial wipes. “Hand me a wipe, please?”

I pull out the plastic package, opening the flap on the top, and hand him a wipe, which he uses to clean his hands before putting it in the backseat behind me.

At my confused look, he explains. “Trash can in the back.”

I spin in my seat to see a tiny reusable plastic bag attached to the passenger seatback with a few tissues inside, and now a wet wipe on top. “Of course you have a trash bag in your car.”

“What do you put your trash in?” His eyebrows are curled in confusion as if I just told him people in my neighborhood cut up their trash and eat it for breakfast or something.

“The floorboard, like normal people,” I explain. “And then you clean it all out when you wash the car.”

“The floorboard? That’s animalistic,” he declares.

I fight my grin, knowing I’ve tossed a few tissues and fast food wrappers onto my floorboard in my time. “I don’t know if I can date someone who doesn’t use extra fast food napkins as tissues in the car. You might be too fancy for a girl like me.”

He’s too everything for a girl like me. Tissues versus napkins are the least of it.

“I’m totally telling my sister that you said I’m fancy. She thinks I’m still half-Neanderthal. Honestly, she’s not wrong,” he says, throwing a thankfully now-clean hand on my thigh. “But Neanderthals have to be prepared for messes too. Especially after that one episode where Miles got gelato on everything.” He shudders at the memory of the mess.

“Gelato?” I echo incredulously. “I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never even had gelato, much less made a mess of it. Ice cream, shakes, malts . . . those I can make a mess with. Which I clean up with a leftover, half-wrinkled napkin from the Dairy Palace like a normal human being. Five-year-olds with gelato . . . fancy.”

“Tissues aside, you just said we’re dating.” He’s grinning like I just gave him a free gelato with sprinkles and told him to have at it. “You having second thoughts about turning me down?”

“Second, and third, and bajillionth. Absolutely,” I confess, heavier than his teasing tone.

He cuts his eyes to me for a second, then back to the road, then repeats the move once more before boldly asking, “You’re not just using me for sex, are you?”

“Oh, my God, you can’t say stuff like that!” I squawk insecurely. “What the hell, Mr. Hale!”