“You should really give that up. It’s so bad for your health.”

“So is candy. You gonna give that up?”

“Maybe…maybe we should get a little bet going to see who can give up their vice longer.”

I pulled up in front of her house—my house—and put it in park, but left the engine idling. “Oh yeah. What would the bet be for? What do I win?”

Gia tapped her finger to her lips. “Hmmm. I don’t know. Let me give it some thought.”

I rested one arm on top of the steering wheel. “You do that.”

She opened the car door but turned back before getting out. “Thank you for the ride home. Those two drinks went right to my head, and I’m not sure walking would’ve been a good idea. But don’t worry, I’m hoping to get my car back on the road really soon, so you won’t have to drive me.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying that I would have driven myself home after two drinks. I’d never drink and drive. I actually don’t drink often. But you know what I mean. Right? Don’t you?”

Being a bar owner, most drunken babbling annoyed the crap out of me, but on Gia, for some reason I found it fucking adorable. “Yes, Gia. I know what you mean.”

“Okay, then. Anywho. Thanks again.”

She started to get out of the car and then I remembered I hadn’t told her about fixing her car.

“Wait. I…a…” It hadn’t felt odd when I’d fixed it. In fact, it felt just the opposite—like I was supposed to be fixing it. Yet now that I was about to tell her what I’d done, I realized for the first time that what was odd was my feeling like I was supposed to fix her damn car.

Gia tilted her head waiting for me to finish. A light breeze passed through the open car door, and a wisp of hair blew across her nose. Without thinking, I reached over and brushed it from her face.

Were her lips that fucking plump five minutes ago?

While I stared they parted and her tongue peeked out to trace the length of her bottom lip. The rise and fall of her chest seemed to expand as the inside of my car closed in around us.

Fuck.

It took every ounce of willpower, but I pulled out of whatever the fuck spell she had me falling under. “I gotta get going.”

Gia blinked a few times. “Oh. Okay.” She started to get out of the car again, and I started to feel like I could breathe. But before she closed the door, she leaned down and showed me her dimples. “You know, you can pretend all you want, but I know you wanted to kiss me just now. You shouldn’t have been a pussy and just done it.” Then she shut the door and yelled, “Good night, bossman.”The next two days I didn’t have to work at the restaurant. Yesterday I’d spent the entire day attempting to write. I’d literally sat at my laptop for twelve hours—and produced nothing. I’d write a few hundred words, read them back, hate every single one of them, and delete. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. By the end of the day, I had added the sum total of nineteen words. Basically, I’d described the sky. I wasn’t even sure what the hell all my characters were named yet.

So on the second day of being off, I decided to take Rush’s advice and blow off the entire day in an attempt to clear my head. I spent the morning and early part of the afternoon in our beautiful yard, lying by the in-ground pool, working on my tan. After I’d gotten enough sun, I decided to go to the theatre that played foreign films a few towns over. I thought it might be a nice change of pace to spend the day reading subtitles and listening to something in French. But I had no transportation.

I knocked on Riley’s bedroom door.

“Come in.”

It looked like she might be getting dressed for work. “Are you working at the restaurant today?”

“Yeah. I’m covering Michael’s shift. Why, what’s up?”

“Do you think I can borrow your car? I’ll drop you off at work and then pick you up at the end of your shift?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Are you going anywhere good?”

“I’m going to go to the movies by myself.”

Riley shook her head. “How many times did you get asked out in the last week working at The Heights? You don’t need to go to the movies alone.”

“All of the guys who come into that place are jerks.”

She looked at me in the reflection of the mirror as she tied her hair into a ponytail. “You can’t let one bad egg ruin the entire summer for you.” I’d confided in Riley about my night with Harlan, the pretty boy I’d slept with who left me with the wrong number.