Beauty and the Baller (Strangers in Love #1)(46)

“I’d never describe you as flighty. You’re here for your sister unconditionally; you say unexpected things.”

“Like what?”

His lashes lower. “Like about what beauty really is . . . and what you said about my face.”

I feel a blush rising. Yes, I said that. And I meant it. “It’s the artist in me. You should know that about me in case anyone asks. I draw and paint, mostly flowers, cows and horses, cowboy hats, barns, and churches. I lived in New York, but the things I love to draw are from where I grew up. Maybe I missed home more than I realized. I should have come home sooner and spent more time with Mama.” I sigh. “When’s your birthday?”

“September seventeenth. Virgo. They’re logical, hardworking, and systematic. The bad trait is stubbornness.” He pops an eyebrow at me, and I laugh and bump my shoulder into him.

“That is so you.”

“I know. Lois said your dad passed years ago . . .”

“Heart attack.” I chew on my lips, my head circling back to the afternoon I heard Mama scream, then run outside. She started CPR on my dad while I called the ambulance. I tell Ronan about it. “Every time I hear a lawn mower, I recall that day. He was gone before they got to the hospital.”

A darkness shadows his eyes. “For me, it’s storms. Lightning scares me, like something bad is going to happen to someone. Tell me something else about you.”

“Hmm, I like to cook. My favorite color is yellow.”

“That’s boring as shit.”

I gasp and put a hand over my heart. Dramatically. “Fine. You want juicy? I broke a toilet in Ryan Reynolds’s penthouse, and he doesn’t know it was me.”

He bursts out laughing. “Oh, you have to explain.”

“He was having his party, and Harry Beauchamp and I went—”

“You dated a New York hockey player too? Damn.”

I raise my hands. “Athletes are my weakness.”

“Is that right?” he says dryly. “Let’s see. There’s Andrew, Harry, Zane—who is a dick—then me—”

“Whoa. You and I, we never ‘dated.’”

He dips his head, grimacing. “Yeah, I guess not. Who else?”

I tick them off on my hands. “A baseball guy, another footballer, a basketball star . . . hmm . . . I’m sure there’s a few more in there . . . they kind of run together.”

“You have a type.”

My eyes drift over him, lingering on the sharp line of his jaw, on his blade of a nose, on his sculpted body, toned by years of exercise . . .

I clear my throat. “Back to this Ryan Reynolds party. Celebrities were everywhere. Blake Lively is the sweetest ever, America Ferrera, Jake Gyllenhaal. I tried not to gawk. Then Harry decided to dance with this actress.” I roll my eyes. “One dance. Two. Three. I was pissed and slung back several glasses of champagne, which then led to what I like to call the Bathroom Crisis.”

“Did you pee your pants?”

“No! The first floor had a line—that’s where I met Anna Kendrick, but I was doing the pee dance and couldn’t talk to her. We weren’t supposed to go upstairs, but in my defense, there wasn’t a person there to tell me I couldn’t go past the velvet rope that blocked it off. If they were serious, they’d have had a guard, right? So I huddle crawled up the stairs, and voilà, there in the hallway was this beautiful megabathroom. I’m talking glossy black subway walls, gold faucets, and a glittery chandelier.”

“Lavish.”

I laugh, recalling me describing his home that way. “I finish my business, flush, then the toilet starts to overflow—like there’s a waterfall gushing out on this fancy marble floor. I jiggle the handle, gold, and it falls off in my hands. I take the lid off the toilet to see if I could adjust the inside of the tank. Nope, the toilet is so high tech it’s beyond my mechanical experience. I drop the lid—it made an awful noise. It cracked just a little. I dragged towels out and cleaned up the water, dumped them in the tub, then set the broken lid back on top of the toilet. Then I fixed my hair like everything was okay, slipped back downstairs, grabbed a glass of champagne, told my date to fuck off, and called a cab. I kept the toilet handle. By accident!”

He gets a funny expression on his face. “When was this party?”

“Five or six years ago? It was springtime—”

“Did Anna Kendrick trip over someone’s leg and sprain her ankle?”

“She did! She had an ice pack wrapped around her . . .” I stop, my eyes widening. “No way . . .”

“I was at that party.”

“But . . . how did I miss you?”

“How did I miss you?” he says softly.

Oh. I look down at my lap and chew on my lip. “Huh.”

“I was with Tuck.”

“You weren’t with Whitney?”

He shakes his head. “I hadn’t met her yet.”

My heart dips, my mind racing. What if . . . what if I had seen him that night? Would he have noticed me? I stop that train of thought. He met Whitney later and loved her.

“Why do you keep Leia in a closet?” I ask.

He stills, frowning. “I bought her last year, and when I got her in the house . . . she didn’t look right. Something . . .” He shrugs. “Anyway, I figured she might be too sexy looking if the players came over to swim on the weekends.”