Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)(50)

I was overwhelmed by the boisterous man, but I laughed at his excitement. “Sorry. I just uh…” I looked to Ryan for help, but he shrugged as he stood there trying to wipe the smile from his face. “I had a rough six months. Couldn’t get out as much. I’m really looking forward to some pizza, though.”

Both men cheered. Behind us, a booth opened up. As a group of teenagers were about to sit, Marco snapped his fingers and shooed them off. “This one’s reserved.”

Leo scooted me into the booth and flashed me one last smile. “You just sit tight, sweetheart. I’ll make you the best pie you’ve ever tasted. On the house tonight. You just promise me you’ll come back more often. We miss you.”

“I promise.”

After the men went back to their restaurant duties, I blinked across the booth at Ryan. “You could have warned me about them.”

He laughed. “I didn’t know. I’ve never been here before.”

That didn’t make sense. “You haven’t?”

“Nope. I told you, you didn’t like passing your energy to me. You always called for takeout and brought it back.” At my bewildered look, he said, “I promised you I’d try not to remember. Tonight’s all about making new memories. This is new for both of us.”

Warmth spread out in my chest. I hadn’t expected that, and I was surprisingly touched.

“It’s also about getting to know yourself again. I figured we could check out the town where you grew up.”

I gasped. “What?”

Ryan leaned back in his seat and swept an arm out toward the window in front of our booth. “Welcome to Mendota, Illinois. The world’s greatest little city. Birthplace of Jamielynn Baker, and home of the Sweet Corn Festival and the Miss Sweet Corn Pageant—of which you won the crown when you were sixteen.”

I stared out the window with new eyes. The town wasn’t much to look at, but it was mine. Ryan startled me out of my reverie. “You lived here until the start of your junior year. Then you moved to Rocklin, California, where you showed up at Rocklin High and stole my heart before you even hit the front steps of the school.”

I looked back at him with a wry smile, and he grinned. “Gorgeous, mysterious new girl that didn’t care what anyone thought about her? How could I not fall in love?”

I was grateful for the low lighting in the pizza place when my cheeks heated up. Ryan wasn’t like other guys—not that I really knew any other guys. On TV men were always perceived as emotionally stunted or afraid of commitment, but Ryan didn’t seem to have a problem declaring his feelings. I was sure he’d put his ring back on my finger in a second if I asked him to. “Mysterious?” I asked, wanting to move far past his use of the L word.

“Oh, yeah.” Ryan laughed. “You were confident and so hot, but you were a loner. You had zero friends and only spoke to people if you absolutely had to, and usually then you were biting people’s heads off. Everyone in school was scared of you. They called you the Ice Queen. You were pretty terrifying. That’s why it took me until senior year to finally get up the guts to ask you out.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Not the real you, no. That’s why you were so intriguing. I couldn’t figure you out.” Ryan’s smile fell a little. “You’d had a really hard time since the accident that gave you your powers. You were grieving, scared, and didn’t have much control over your power. You were afraid of hurting people or having them find out about you, so you pushed everyone away.”

I pushed everyone away? The engagement ring I used to wear would suggest otherwise. I was curious as to how we got together, and how he discovered my powers if I’d been so closed off, but I was even more curious about how I got my power in the first place.

Marco appeared at our table then, with the most mouthwatering pizza I’d ever seen or smelled and a refill on our sodas. “One Jamie Special for my favorite girl,” he announced, sliding the masterpiece onto the table between Ryan and me.

Ryan placed a piece onto a plate and pushed it in front of me. His eyes twinkled as he waited for me to taste it. Even Marco was still standing there waiting for me to try it. I happily indulged them and immediately moaned, making both Ryan and Marco laugh. I didn’t care. Living in the desert with Teddy completely unwilling to take me into the city for fear of being discovered by Visticorp, I’d lived mostly off of canned, frozen, and boxed food that had been stored in the safe house bunker. Occasionally, if Teddy really needed something, he’d go out and bring back takeout or pizza. But that pizza was nothing like this pizza.

After Marco left, Ryan helped himself to his own slice of pizza while I practically inhaled mine. As I grabbed a second piece, I laughed and said, “Good call on the pizza. You’re right. I love it.”

“Do you love it enough to make me your boyfriend?”

I snorted. He was relentless, but the persistence was flattering. “I love it enough not to zap you for asking to be my boyfriend again when I’ve already made my opinion on the subject clear.”

Ryan refused to give up. “How about a kiss, then? Tell me I at least earned a kiss for reintroducing you to your favorite food.”

It wasn’t fair. How was a girl supposed to have any kind of resolve when so much charm was being thrown at her? But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just give him what he wanted even if I did feel butterflies at the thought of kissing him. He’d be a billion times worse if I gave in to him even a little. Rolling my eyes, I smirked and held my hand out across the table. “Fine. Go ahead. Kiss away, Romeo.”