Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(28)

“And in some cases, they kick their date in the head.” He tipped the coffee cup he held in her direction. “I hope this date ends better than your last one did.”

She made a face at him. “I think we’re safe there. But here’s the thing. We already know each other. So what do we talk about?”

“Well. We know some things.” He put the coffee down and leaned forward.

Another stupid thing—why did her pulse have to skyrocket like that when all he did was close his fingers around her hands and lift them up? Maybe the kiss he brushed against the back of her right hand could explain the skip in her pulse, but just him touching her?

“We know some things,” he said again, his gaze on her hands, his thumb rubbing back against her skin. “That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot left to learn.”

Maybe that was why she was nervous. If they got to know each other, didn’t that mean she’d have to figure out if she’d ever talk about . . . her brain shied away from the secrets, the subterfuge, the shadows that made up too much of her.

His lips brushed over her knuckles. She looked up, met his eyes.

Felt the air in her lungs die.

The way he watched her . . .


*

If she kept looking at him like that, it was going to cause problems, Zane decided. They were in the middle of a coffee shop. Not the ideal place for him to knock the table out of the way, pull her into his lap, and figure out how to peel those sexy, striped tights away without letting her go once he had her in his arms.

Since that wasn’t really an option, he folded the paper and tucked it to the side, taking his time with that mundane task just so he’d have a few more seconds to level out before he looked at her again.

“See, there’s the thing . . . we’ve known each other for three years, but like I said, I don’t know things I want to know.” He shot her a look.

“Like what?” She looked wary now.

“Well, the books, for one. You’re always reading. What do you like to read?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Romance.”

He scratched his jaw. “Okay.”

“What . . . no comments?”

“Keelie, have you met my mother?”

She blinked. “Well. Yeah. Half a dozen times, easy.”

“Thought so.” He nodded and leaned forward. “Up until ebook readers came out? She’d carried a giant purse just so she could have two books in her bag with her. All the time. They were always romance. Now, maybe I’d think it was silly . . .”

That glint appeared in her eyes.

He grinned at her. “Hey, I said maybe I’d think—that’s past tense. Maybe I’d think it was silly, but I’m smart. Unlike Zach.” He winked at her, watched as she settled back in the chair, some of the tension fading from her body, a smile flirting with her lips. “Now Zach had his fun poking at those books. Not when she was around. Or at least, he thought she wasn’t. He was sixteen, had a couple of friends over. He started poking at the books, had one of them and was reading it aloud. Mom walked in just as one of his friends grabbed a pillow and started to kiss it. Because, yeah, romance, pillows, and kissing just go together.”

Keelie snorted.

“Hey, we’re talking teenage boys. We don’t always think in ways of logic. So she’s standing there and the boys stopped laughing, Zach looks like he was caught with his hand in the candy jar while his friend dropped the pillow, looked back, saw Mom. I’m leaning against the wall at this point, enjoying my front row seat. Mom just picked up her book, tapped it against her hand as she looked at him, then the rest of them. She just shook her head and walked out. Dad was right behind her and he gave them all the saddest look before he said, Boys, I’m going to save you a lot of trouble. If you want to make a girl mad . . . insult what she reads.”

Zane rubbed his finger along the table, eying the business cards and bits of art tucked under the protective sheet glass. “Now the boy who’d been kissing the pillow? He started to laugh, then he said, Like I’m ever going to go out with a girl desperate enough to need romance books.”

“Oops.” Keelie pursed her lips.

“Yeah. That pissed me off. Zach started yelling at him. My dad, though, he just laughed. Told him if he thought my mother read them because she was desperate, then he was welcome to keep on thinking that. My mom graduated at the top of her class from UC Berkeley. She planned on being a lawyer—then she met my dad and fell in love with him. She had me, and she said from then on, the only thing she wanted was to be with us. But she’s a smart woman, could have done just about anything she wanted. Probably could have had anything she wanted.” He paused, and the smile that softened his face tugged at everything in her. “I guess she did have what she wanted, after all . . . she wanted us. To raise a family. That makes us pretty lucky. Anyway, she reads romance because she enjoys it—anybody who wants to challenge her on that? They do it at their own peril.”

“I didn’t know your mom went to Berkeley.” The words were soft, spoken to the coffee cup she held in her hands. Then she glanced up, shrugged. “I read a lot of stuff, but I like romance and urban fantasy the best. The bad guy gets his, you get a happy ending. There’s not enough of that in life. Why not find it in a book?”

He had a feeling there was a wealth of meaning in those words. But he didn’t push. Instead, he just leaned forward, still holding her eyes. “So . . . we’ve covered books. We’ve had five minutes . . . and then some . . . for coffee. There were a few other things I said I wanted last night.”