Page 35 of Homebody
She reviewed all the advice Red and Ruby had thrown at her earlier today. She was supposed to be cocky and spirited but also aloof and bored, all while being sexy and flirty.
How in the world could one person be all that at the same time? What she did know was that she shouldn’t be shy, awkward and embarrassed—all of the things she was.
What would Ruby say in this situation? Tessa pictured it clearly. The cock of one brow. The twisting of a lip. The casual off-hand lift of one shoulder.
She absorbed all that attitude and flippantly said, “Sorry. My thesaurus is currently in the pile of books propping up a table that’s missing a leg in the bedroom.”
The beauty of what she’d said was that it was completely true.
He barked out a laugh. “I can picture it. And don’t worry.Niceis fine. I’ll take it.”
“Fine. Just fine?” she returned, turning the mocking back on him for using a word as common and overused as she had.
Looking amused, Dean nodded. “Touché.”
Now that she was getting the hang of this bad girl attitude stuff, it was kind of fun.
Fun, until he said, “So what do you say we have a nice and fine day together again some time?”
Chapter Seventeen
He’d asked. Amazingly, she’d said yes. And that was how just two days later Tessa was seated once again next to Dean in his mother’s car.
“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” Tessa asked.
Dean quirked up the corner of his mouth as she eyed him suspiciously from the passenger seat of the hybrid Tuesday afternoon.
“You’ll see.”
She lowered her brows at his answer. Lips pressed together tightly, she looked unhappy but didn’t comment.
Yes, he was keeping her in suspense on purpose. It was important to maintain a certain level of mystery to keep a woman’s interest, no?
That odd, completely out of the blue thought hit him hard, like a slap across the face. Actually, that might be exactly what he needed. A good hard slap to knock some sense into him because he shouldn’t be worrying about keeping Tessainterested.
This thing with Tessa was temporary. Temporary and fake. Although it felt less and less fake as the days went by.
Initially them hanging out together had been to keep his mother and his ex-girlfriend off his back was he was home. Now it seemed he was hanging out with Tessa simply because he wanted to. So not so fake then, but still temporary.
Temporary,he repeated to himself to ingrain that truth into his brain.
Yet here he was about to go out of his way to do something that some might call a grand gesture were they the romantic sort, which generally he was not. And damned if he wasn’t as excited about her surprise as he hoped she would be.
His pulse kicked up even now as he pulled the car into the parking lot of the church and around to the back entrance.
“Church?” She glanced through the windshield then turned to stare at him as he cut the car’s engine. “You’re taking me to church?”
He let out a short laugh at her reaction. “Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Shocking Tessa was too much fun. Seeing her surprise when he finally revealed why they were really there would be even better.
Unhooking the seatbelt, he reached for the door handle and said, “Come on.”
“I don’t think I’m dressed appropriately for church,” she said. Hesitating where she sat, she glanced down at the concert T-shirt beneath her leather jacket.
“God loves you anyway, Tessa” he said, trying to hold in a laugh as he teased her.
The cock of her brow at that had him chuckling.
