“It’s okay. I don’t own one either. I have a hood on my jacket if it starts coming down harder, but honestly, if I was afraid of a little water, I wouldn’t live in Oregon.”
They got out of the car, and he took her hand as they started walking. “Have you always lived here?”
“Yep. Grew up in Alameda. My parents still live there.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know that about you.”
“You never asked.”
And that made him wonder why.
“And I don’t have a Wiki page for you to stalk me as I did you.” she chuckled.
He raised his brows. “You stalked me?”
“Oops. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” She smiled up at him. “The first day we met. I wanted to know if you were as big a deal as Jason let on.”
“And what did you find out? Anything interesting?”
“Well, I hit a gold mine of information when I stumbled across a fan page.”
“Half of what you read is BS.”
“So, you didn’t grow up a poor orphan on the streets of Pasadena?”
“They got the Pasadena part right,” he deadpanned and made Ivy laugh.
“But seriously,” she stopped them, putting a hand on his chest. “Please tell me they didn’t lie about your Neil Diamond obsession.”
Colt tipped his head back and laughed. When he recovered, he said, “How do they know these things?”
Ivy’s eyebrows spiked practically to her hairline. “It’s true?”
“Again, partly. My Dad had the obsession. Made me listen whenever we were in the car together.”
“And now I feel fortunate because at least my dad was obsessed with Fleetwood Mac.”
Colt nodded. “I’ll take Stevie over Neil any day.”
Ivy started belting out the lyrics toLeather and Laceand it stopped him in his tracks.
“…I need you to love—” She kept walking until her arm reached the limit of their joined hands, stopping her mid-lyric. She turned her head to look back at him. “What?”
“You can sing.”
Shaking her head, she said, “No, I can carry a tune.”
“No, you have a great voice. Has no one ever told you that?”
Ivy shrugged. “My family. But they don’t count.”
They started walking again. “Well, I’m not family, and I’m telling you.”
“Yes, but we’re having sex, so you don’t count either.”
He couldn’t let it go. “Have you ever thought about singing professionally?”
She laugh-snorted. “Um. No.”