Page 47 of Fall for Me

“Don’t you like pizza?” There was laughter in her voice now, and I wanted desperately for it to stay. I wanted to tease her, to say something to make it come out, bubbling, so I could have the pleasure of hearing it.

It was selfish.

What would Eli do if he saw us now? If he knew what I was thinking?

Dad told me his favorite adage when I’d been a kid, and again when I’d started working for the business: Your word is your bond, Seamus. Everything rests on your word.

The antiseptic was the spray-on kind. “It’s okay.”

“Okay?!”

I held the back of her knee, praying the thickening at my crotch would go away when she cursed me out for hurting her with this spray.

I looked her in the eye. “I like simple ones. None of that meat-lovers all-dressed stuff.”

Chelsea gaped. “But you ate burgers the other day?”

“Burgers are for burgers.” I spritzed the antiseptic on her right knee.

“Ow!” She jerked her leg sideways.

“Margherita,” I said, dabbing at the dripping antiseptic with gauze.

“I… what?” She sucked air through her teeth with each touch.

“Margherita pizza. That’s my favorite.”

“With tomato sauce and b-bocconcini, right?”

“And basil. And a crust as thin as paper. You okay?”

She let out a breath, still grimacing. “I’m fine. But you distracted me. It won’t happen again. Where can you get that?”

“What, Margherita?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there is this one place…” I glanced out the window as if a new pizza place might have sprung up outside.

She took the bait, following my gaze with a frown.

“It’s not here, sadly.” I spritzed the other knee.

“Jesus!” She jumped.

I reached for the gauze. “New York has the best Margherita outside Italy. Also, gotcha.”

Chelsea narrowed her eyes, but I could see the slight curl in her lips.

As I patted around the wound with the gauze, I saw her cringe. I needed to keep her distracted. But small talk wasn’t exactly my thing. Then I spotted the bag Dad had picked up; the doggie bags spilling out of it and realized we hadn’t even talked about the dog. “So whose puppy was that?”

“Lola?”

“No, that other dog.”

She narrowed her eyes, but laughed.

“A friend’s.”

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