Page 10 of Girls Will Be Girls
I sigh. “It’s fine, I don’t care.”
Then he goes to grab the white chocolate cookie, and I watch his hand move over it, but before he makes contact, he whips his finger up at my face.
“I knew you cared.” He squints at me.
“What? No, I don’t.” I protest.
“That is not the face of someone whodoesn’t care.” He mocks. “You want the white chocolate?” He asks earnestly.
“I don’t-”
“Yeah, you do.” He cuts me off with a smirk, biting out a huge chunk of the chocolate chip cookie. “Do you always just say everything’s fine when it’s not?” He chews.
“Are you psychoanalyzing me now?” I dig into my own cookie.
He shrugs. “I’m genuinely curious.” He takes my wheelie bag and pulls it forward. “Come on.”
I go to take it back from him, but he just waves me off. “I got it. Just eat your cookie.”
He walks a couple of steps ahead of me, and I follow, feeling like a spoilt child trailing with my delicious treat.
“You still feeling guilty or something?” I call to him.
He laughs without turning. “Believe it or not, I can actually be nice.” He grins over his shoulder at me. “Especially to my fiancée.”
I roll my eyes.
We reach the security lines, and after I throw out my empty coffee cup, Lou passes my bag back to me. “You should probablytake that.” He says. “I don’t wanna be arrested if you’re trying to smuggle through fireworks or something.”
“Fireworks?”
He lifts his duffel bag onto the conveyor belt, slipping his laptop out into a tray. “I don’t know what you’re into.”
I suppress a smile as I follow him, lifting my bags and laptop too, praying my vibrator doesn’t decide to announce itself while I rummage.
Annoyingly, he doesn’t get full body scanned, waltzing straight through, while I have to stand in that awkward pod with my arms and legs wide, while he watches me with that annoying grin.
Once I collect my things and reach where he’s waiting for me, he turns to whisper in my ear.
“Knew you were packing fireworks.”
My hair catches lightly in his stubble for a split second, and no one has any right smelling that nice at an airport. How does he smell freshly showered, with a spritz of something sweet like orange and crisp like rosemary?
I look up at his smirk, and in my distracted state, he grabs my bag again, wheeling it between us.
“So.” He starts. “You wanna peruse the stores with me?”
“Oh.” I start doing mental math for how much time I’ll need to be able to shower and how long I can waste before I really need to run. “I guess, yeah.” I agree, figuring I’ll boost through my shower quickly and skip washing my legs.
“Louisa.” He says with a deep, raspy tone that has no right hitting my nerve endings like that. “That was a test, and you failed.”
I whip my eyes back to his. “A test? Of what?”
“If you really do just say fine to anything.” He grins. “And you failed. Miserably.”
“Why are you testing me?” I huff at him.
“I told you.” He shrugs. “I was curious.”
