Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(68)

“Have you been talking to my mom?” I ask him.

“Yeah, she and I talk most days.” He waves a casual hand in the air. “Usually just about how you never call, and how you should find a nice boy to bring home.”

“That sounds exactly like my mom.”

Luke’s phone makes a soft chime and I have to tamp down the pulse of irritation I still get whenever it goes off. He looks up, pocketing his phone obliviously. “Want to get some dinner later?”

“Actually I have plans,” I tell him, closing my laptop and slipping it into my bag.

His expression falls just the tiniest amount, making me wonder if I imagined it as his eyes flicker down to follow the movement of my hands as I wrap up my cord. “Plans?”

“Fred has a date and I promised him I’d watch his granddaughter.”

“Babysitting?” he asks. “How old is she?”

“Five going on sixteen. She’s the cutest thing. Anyway, before I head over, I need to run home and shower, eat. You know.” I stand and loop my bag across my body before pushing in my chair. Luke stands and my heart takes off at the whiff of ocean and the faint clean smell of his sweat.

Dinner with him sounds nice, though.

Damnit.

He reaches forward to untwist my strap on my shoulder. “All right.”

We stand there, the question hanging between us. I can tell he’s not going to push . . . for once.

“You wouldn’t want to babysit with me,” I say, looking up at him through my lashes. “I mean, you’d find that totally boring, right?”

I can’t believe I just asked him this. What twenty-three-and-a-half-year-old man in his right mind would want to come along to babysit?

But this is Luke: he gives me a little one-shouldered shrug. “I did letter in dolly hair.”

Shocked, I look up at him fully now, watching the smooth line of his throat as he swallows. “You would want to come?”

He shrugs again and tosses his cup into a recycling bin. “Why not?”

“You wouldn’t be bored?”

His smile melts my heart. “Maybe, but wouldn’t it be more fun to be bored together?”

“Are you sure?” I ask. I sort of love the idea of having Luke along for the night, especially since I miss the flirty side of him and that can only be remedied with just . . . more time with him. “It’ll be tea parties and Barbie.”

“Logan, if you keep trying to talk me out of the idea, I might change my mind,” he says, laughing. Luke manages to get a few steps ahead of me and holds open the door.

“Thanks,” I tell him. “That would be . . . awesome.”

He slips on his sunglasses and follows me into the parking lot. We reach my car, and even though his eyes are hidden behind his dark lenses, I can sense the hopeful way he stares down at me. “So . . . what time?”

There are a million reasons why this is a bad idea, but as I lean against my car door, I find myself wanting to hang out with him so much it almost feels urgent. Luke is managing to break down my walls one smile at a time. Being with him feels a little like letting go of the handlebars and racing down a hill. And it also feels like being wrapped up in the warmest blanket.

How can he feel both like an adventure and a comfort?

“Six,” I tell him. “And fair warning: you have to bring pizza and let her braid your hair if she asks.”



* * *



“YOU KNOW, IF I do say so myself, this was a great idea. You’re a fantastic babysitter.” I wiggle my toes, feet propped up on Fred’s coffee table. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re just a pretty face, Blue Crush.”

Luke grins at me from across the room where he’s sitting with Daisy at a small table, in an even smaller chair, in the midst of what appears to be an elaborate tea party. His usually soft, floppy hair is spiky now, tied up by fluorescent hairbands in about twenty tiny, crazy ponytails.

He leans toward Daisy conspiratorially and hikes his thumb in my direction. “I told you she thought I was pretty.”

Daisy slides a couple of decorative flowers into the mess of his hair. I laugh under my breath and sit up. “Well, how could I not? I mean, Daisy must have lettered in dolly hair, too, because yours looks amazing like that. Is she friends with your sister?”

“You said there’d be no teasing,” he tells me, and politely thanks Daisy when she offers him more tea.

“That doesn’t really sound like a thing I would say to you, Luke.”

“Fine,” he says, giving me a little wink. “Go ahead and joke, but don’t think I didn’t see you watching while she put in these ponytails. You love my hair.” He leans forward and puts a hand over each of her tiny ears before he adds, “And I remember how much you love to get your hands in it.”

“You had to cover her ears for that?” I ask. “That wasn’t even dirty.”

“The dirty part was implied,” he says, dropping his hands. “Sometimes the dirtiest things are the simplest. Like your swimsuit the other day: it covered more because you had to move and work in the water, but it was still hotter than some skimpy thing that shows sideboob.”

I can only look at him and blink. “But you didn’t have to cover her ears for that?”