Page 25 of You Had Me at Chocolate

She waggled her eyebrows at him, her eyes twinkling. “Really?”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, really.”

“Like what?”

“You really are fishing for compliments, aren’t you?”

“I think it’s fair to say I’ve given up on fishing to cut straight to the chase.”

Jude laughed. “You have.”

“Do you usually make all your women work so hard for compliments?”

“All my women?” What the hell? And… was she counting herself in that number?

“Yes. All. There are a lot of pictures of you out there with a lot of different women.”

There was no denying, Jude had enjoyed his celebrity over the years but he was no Hugh Hefner. “You’ve been checking me out, huh?”

“Over the years, sure. What can I say?” She shrugged. “I’m a librarian. I have ninja googling skills.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t believe half of what you see or read on the internet.” It was fair to say that about ninety percent of the stuff that had been written about him in tabloids and online was wrong.

“Hmm.” She eyed him suspiciously, her lips pursed. Which was very distracting. Silence grew between them for a beat or two before she bugged her eyes at him. “Well?”

His brows drew together. “Well what?”

“I’m still waiting to hear a compliment? Honestly—” She shook her head. “How did you get so many women?”

Jesus, just how many women did she think he’d been with? “Would you believe through their stomachs?”

She gave a quick snort laugh. “Not for a second.” And then they both laughed until it petered out and Clementine tapped her index finger on their joined hands. “Still waiting, Barlow.”

“Okay, okay.” He withdrew his hand with no protest from Clementine as he leaned in, pretending to inspect her face, his gaze roaming all over from the spring of curls to the fullness of her chipmunk cheeks to the tip or her nose and the pointiness of her chin. She grinned at him, clearly amused.

“Yep.” He nodded solemnly. “You’ve grown into your teeth.”

Her mouth gaped in surprise and then she hooted out a laugh. “Oh my god.” She shook her head at him. “That is not a compliment.”

“No seriously.” He sat back a little as if to do a fuller assessment but mostly just to put himself out of reach of temptation. “Those two years of braces were definitely worth it.”

“Well, that’s good to know. I hated them.”

“Yeah. I remember.” Clementine had shown up at their last camp with her newly applied braces. “You couldn’t stop lamenting in your letters that no boy would ever want to kiss you.”

Almost as soon as it was out, Jude wished he could take the K word back. Jesus. Don’t talk about kissing with Clementine, dickhead. And definitely do not think about kissing her, either. But it was easy in the dark with nothing but the crackle of the fire, to be lulled into reminiscing. The memories were fond and she was incredibly easy to talk to.

“That’s because Billy Marsh had told me that a girl with a mouthful of metal was too off-putting to kiss. I was fourteen, it was important.”

Jude remembered that letter. They’d continued to correspond on and off over the remainder of their high school years which had made not seeing her again after that last camp together a little easier.

He shook his head. “Billy Marsh was clearly an idiot.”

She smiled. “I’ll have you know that according to Billy Marsh, he was the stud of ninth grade.”

“Color me surprised.” Jude laughed. “I bet he’s bald with a paunch these days and didn’t do so well with the ladies outside of the gloried halls of high school.”

“He’s not bald. Although—” She squinted as if trying to recall what Billy dufus Marsh currently looked like. “He is thinning on top, now you come to mention it. And he did marry. Twice.” Her lips twitched. “He’s currently living with his mother.”

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