Page 93 of Him Lessons

Luke folded his arms over his chest. “What’s so bad about motorcycle dudes?”

She glanced down at the tray she’d pulled out. “I don’t know. I guess they’re kinda growing on me.”

Luke chuckled as he moved towards the hallway. The first door on the right caught his attention because it was cracked open just enough for him to see a bed topped with some type of canopy. Curious, Luke slipped inside as Andy was prepping the gaming grub.

Unlike the living room, this space was totally her. From the birdcage sitting on a dresser strewn with books, to the gaming rig she’d set up on a wide gray desk (similarly scattered with books), to the big beige camping tent topping a queen-size four-poster. It was all one hundred percent Andy.

Luke cocked his head at the monstrosity on her mattress. “Were you planning on joining the lovebirds in Yosemite too?” he called out.

“Uh, no,” Andy called back, sounding confused. Not five seconds later, he heard her swear as she sorted out what he was referring to. Rushing into the room, she set the snack-laden tray on the dresser, then turned towards the tent. “I was just testing that out for later.”

“Hmmm.” Considering the tired stretch of the bungee cords connecting the thing to the bedposts, she’d probably been testing it out for a while. “Alright,” Luke said, stroking the bird chewing on his hair, “here’s another one for ya. Most guys like camping tents. Kyle’s no exception. You can have all kinds of fun in a camping tent. But generally, that kind of fun happens when you’re actually camping.”

“Because of the PDA factor?”

“Yup.”

“Kory and Gray do a lot of camping.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I should probably take this off, huh?”

“It might be time,” he said with a wry smile. “Want some help?” At her nod, Luke deposited Petals in her cage and walked over to one of the bedposts.

In a matter of minutes, he and Andy had the tent broken down and stuffed into an empty laundry basket near her closet.

Andy glanced back at her rumpled bedding, winced, then plucked up something that looked suspiciously like a Cool Ranch Dorito. “It’s been a while since I washed the sheets. I should probably change them. Be right back.” Tossing the chip in a wastebasket near her nightstand, she disappeared from the room.

Luke, being the helpful guy he was, stripped off Andy’s lavender quilt and tossed it towards the laundry basket. Then he grabbed the top sheet. As he pulled it back, something clattered to the floor. Something pink and Y-shaped that Luke would have liked to inspect further had Andy not returned at that precise moment with the fresh linens.

Spotting the device he was bending towards, she dumped her bundle, dove for it, and just managed to scoop the thing up before he could get a finger on it.

Which, hell yes, Luke would have really loved to get a finger on it.

Alas, it was not to be. Andy seemed to prefer stowing it. Yanking open her left nightstand drawer, she tossed the toy inside, slammed the drawer shut, and blew out a breath that ruffled the wispy tendrils of hair falling about her rosy cheeks. “Can you possibly forget you just saw that?”

“Not a chance. It’s burned into the memory banks.”

“Pretend, jerk.”

“Sure.”

Snorting, she chucked a pillowcase at him.

They finished off the bed-making, then Andy fired up her PC. As she got the laptop going for him, Luke found a small armchair in the corner of the room and busied himself clearing the pile of books from it.

Andy’s reading preferences seemed to lean heavily towards nonfiction. One of the books was an old copy ofMen Are from Mars, Woman Are from Venus,another selection appeared to be on more traditional notions of astronomy, and another was on container gardening, of all things.

Riveting stuff.

Luke was just going to suggest she might want to read some fiction for a change when he discovered a paperback at the bottom of the pile. The novel appeared to be a romance given the whimsically drawn cover art of a couple smooching over a long division symbol. And the obvious title.The Kiss Quotient.Luke chuckled.

Clearly, Andy liked the story given all the dog-eared pages. Before Luke could sneak a peek, she plucked the paperback out of his hands and tossed it towards the rapidly filling laundry basket.

“Okay, so your avatar’s gonna be a dwarf because we don’t have one in our crew, and we need his weapons-crafting skills, and since Jake wants to be a wizard with Carson that leaves you.”

“Do I get to carry a big axe?”

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