“Did you just sigh?” he asked.
“No.” I sighed again.
“Avery.”
“Thorn.”
“Be honest. Are you really out with Carl?”
“He, uh, had a recital.” I slapped my hand against my forehead. Great, Avery, because grown men had recitals?
Lucas was quiet for a moment. “Oh, so he teaches children, then?”
Thank God one of us was logical. “YES!”
“No need to shout it, Avery.”
“Oh, sorry, I just, um, got excited. You know, about the kids.”
“I bet.” He chuckled. “So, I was thinking . . .”
“Good for you, Thorn.”
He ignored me and pressed on. “Are you hungry?”
“Is this a trick?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The spider in the corner continued to make itself at home while I made myself comfortable in the middle of the floor. “I’m always hungry.” There, that sounded good, not like the starving human I was. More like, oh cool, I could eat, when really my brain was screaming I would destroy an entire elephant right now, sorry not sorry.
“Answer your door.”
I gasped. “Did you order me PIZZA?”
“Why are you always yelling at me?”
“Sister. Wrong bed. Broken engagement. Whore—”
“I’m sorry, did you want food?”
“Yes!” I jumped to my feet and ran over to the door and pulled it open, then fumbled with my phone as I nearly dropped it onto the floor.
“Thorn.”
“I was in the neighborhood.” He grinned.
“What? Fighting crime?” Just then a loud scream erupted down the hall.
With a gasp, I grabbed his shirt and jerked him into the living room, then proceeded to lock every lock on my door.
The screaming got louder.
With a yawn, I turned around and took in Lucas’s wide-eyed expression.
“Are you sure you’re safe here?”
“Oh that?” I pointed at the door. “That’s nothing. Mr. Thompson just gets confused sometimes and walks into the wrong apartment while women are changing. His timing is impeccable.”
“So . . .” Lucas clutched two bags, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. “Mr. Thompson is a peeping Tom who just randomly breaks into people’s apartments?”
“He doesn’t break in—I mean, not really. He opens the door, takes a step in, says he’s lost, and walks right back out. Harmless really.”
“Which is why you lock your door.”
“I refuse to let him become the only man to see me naked in a year.” I laughed and then smacked my hand against my forehead. “I mean—”
“Noooooo, you mean Carl’s not real? How are the dancing children by the way? Invisible?”
“Hey! That’s an actual real nonprofit.”
Lucas’s cleft just made his stupid smile look bigger, and more . . . mocking, and sexy, but I refused to find him sexy, so I forced myself to think his smile was stupid and ugly. “I know—I give to the cause.”
“Of course you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I marched over to where he was standing, which was like a foot away from me, given how small my apartment was, and snagged the take-out bag from his hands. “What do you have?”
“Easy.” He pried my hands from the bags. “You get food, but you have to do something for me first.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “That’s cruel. You know how much I love food. How dare you use it as a way to get me to do you a favor! I have to work with you, isn’t that favor enough?”
Lucas sighed, his shoulders moving up and down with each exhale like he was so irritated with me his body couldn’t help but show it. “More like I have to put up with you and you have to put up with me.”
“Wait”—I held up my hand—“where’s Monday?”
“You mean Molly?” His smile was so smug, I wanted to punch him in the throat and then send him out to Mr. Thompson for some playtime.
“Yes.” I tried reaching for the bag again. “Molly.”
“You look great by the way, very shabby chic.”
It was then that I realized my attire. I was wearing ratty red shorts from high school and a white T-shirt with “I’m a Unicorn” scrawled across the front.
My socks had at least two holes in them.
Summary—I looked homeless.
I quickly touched my hair. At least it was pulled back into a bun, out of my face.
I groaned. In a scrunchie. I actually had a scrunchie in my hair.
“Those making a comeback?” He pointed at the scrunchie and burst out laughing. “Because I have to say, I’m a huge fan.”
“Out!” I gestured toward the door.
“What?” He set the bags on the table and turned toward me. “You’re just going to kick me and the food out?”
“The food can stay. It’s done nothing offensive.”
“And I have?”
“You are breathing.”
“So violent and jaded for someone so young.”
“Molly?”
“Her parents are in town, and she figured it would be too hard to explain that the guy she’s seeing is also seeing other women and, no, would not in fact be proposing marriage anytime soon. They’re very strict Catholics.”