Page 60 of Truth or Tequila (Grand Slam 1)

“Everyone should be scared of those,” I say, smiling at him. “I’m sure you’re not scared of anything.”

“Uh, I don’t love snakes and I’m deathly afraid of dancing.”

I choke on my wine as I start laughing. “Dancing?”

“Freshman year homecoming. I stepped on my date’s foot and broke her toe.”

“What? Oh my God.” I’m laughing so hard that my eyes are starting to water. “You broke her toe?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” he says, pointing at me.

“I’m not. I promise.” I press my lips together tightly to try to quit laughing. “Did you have to take her home?”

“Yeah,” he says, “she couldn’t walk. Her dad was so pissed at me. I haven’t danced since. These feet are deadly weapons.”

“Well, we might have to work on that at some point—”

“I’m not dancing ever. You can’t make me.” He walks over and stirs the pot that’s reheating some leftover pasta sauce. “This smells amazing. Homemade?”

“Yeah, I love cooking when I have time.”

“Me, too,” he says, looking at me almost shyly. “My mom taught me how. I was always kind of a quiet kid. I liked hanging out with her in the kitchen.”

“What’s your favorite thing to make?” I push myself up until I’m sitting on the counter. He seems to have taken over the cooking.

“I like to grill, but that’s not really cooking. I guess holiday meals. You know, when everyone’s in the kitchen cooking the whole spread. My specialty’s sweet potatoes. I like to make them a little spicy.”

I watch him for a second as he multi-tasks between the sauce and the noodles. He’s nothing like I expected him to be. “Where do you spend the holidays?”

He looks up. “Back in Michigan where I grew up. My folks still live there—pretty close to Grand Rapids. You said you’d only been here eight years. I thought you were a native.”

“Nope. Chicago—just around the lake from you. I moved here for college and never left.”

“You like it here?”

“I like the weather. Chicago’s too cold but it’s miserable here in the summer, too. I’ve always thought if I had enough money, I would seek seventy-degree temperatures all year round.”

“What? Like chase that temperature around the globe?” He takes a few noodles out of the pot and tastes them.

“Yeah, like just keep moving all the time.”

“Or you could move to San Diego.”

“No, I don’t like the Pacific Ocean. It’s too cold for me. I want to swim without a wetsuit.” I drain my glass of wine. He pours me another. “Do you want a caprese salad to go with the pasta?”

“I don’t know what that is, but yeah, I’m sure I’d eat it,” he says, smiling at me. I love how his eyes light up when he smiles. “Okay, so I have the money to make this seventy-degree thing work. Let’s decide where we’re headed for the year.”

“What?”

“I mean just for fun. Let’s decide where we would go.”

“Hmm,” I say, cutting into the block of mozzarella. “I’ve always wanted to live in The Keys, but you know, the whole hurricane thing, so maybe we can start there in January after the storms are gone.”

“Okay, I like that. It starts getting too hot down there probably in May, so maybe the mountains after that?”

“No, too cold in May. How about we head over to Italy for May and June? Rome, The Amalfi Coast. It’s perfect there that time of year.”

“Nice. Pasta, wine, we seem to be developing a theme. What after June?”

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