Page 27 of Only and Forever
“Stop smiling,” she growls.
“How do you know I’m smiling?” I’m definitely smiling. How could I help it?
“Call it a hunch.” The engine roars even louder. “Now, hold tight.”
I lift my arm in salute. “Yes ma’am— Shit!” The Vespa flies forward, and my arm drops instinctively back around her waist, hugging my body over hers. Her fantastic, full ass is tucked right up into my groin. My thighs hug hers, pinned close.
It would be, hands down, the hottest moment of my life, if I wasn’t terrified I was about to die. She revs the engine noisily and does a couple of fancy swerves as we ease toward the main road.
“Tallulah,” I warn.
“Viggo.” Nowshe’ssmiling, the devious little menace. I can feel it, like I feel starlight before I glance up and find the sky filled with it.
“Enjoying my abject terror, you gremlin?”
“Immensely. But trust me, I’ll get us there alive. Nothing’s coming between me and my lo mein.” With one fluid turn, Tallulah curves us around the parking lot and tears out onto the road.
—
“Tallulah Clarke.” I yank open the restaurant’s door and hold it for my almost executioner.
She strolls inside, twisting her hair back up into a bun on top of her head. “Viggo Bergman.”
“That was a near-death experience.”
“That truck,” she says primly, releasing her hair tie with asnap, “needed to stay in their lane.”
“Yeah, and much good your little duck horn did to remind them of that.”
Tallulah flashes me a cold glare as I smile at the host and tell them just the two of us, and a booth, please. “Which is why I went around them,” she says.
“And that’s when I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
She swats my stomach, earning my reflexiveoof, before she steps ahead of me and follows the host. “I had it under control.”
“Five years of my life shaved off in that moment, easy.”
“You’re just shaky from low blood sugar again.” A mini peanut butter cup comes sailing over her shoulder.
I catch it, tear off the foil, and shove it in my mouth. “Chocolate can’t solve all our problems, Lu.”
Tallulah slides serenely into the booth, shimmying down the bench until she’s tucked into the corner, purse wedged beside her. “Just eat and calm down.”
“ ‘Calm down,’ she says,” I mutter, yanking my ball cap low. “Like she didn’t almost bring us to an untimely end on Venice Boulevard.”
“You’re just salty because I didn’t let you drive me in your rust box on wheels.”
“You,” I tell her, pointing with my chopsticks still in their paper, “need to back off Ashbury. He’s seen me through some tough times, and I’m a true blue, so I’m seeing him through his. I’m driving that car until he’s...”
Tallulah raises her eyebrows. “Undrivable? Doesn’t pass inspection? Falls apart? Sorry, bud, that ship has sailed.”
I open my menu and scan it, even though I know exactly what I’m getting. “I’m moving on from this conversation.”
“Of course you are—you can’t talk your way out of it.”
Our server approaches. Tallulah gives them the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a smile and politely orders. I order, too.
Tallulah sits quietly, hands folded on the table. I stare at her, a very aggravating blend of attraction and annoyance twisting tighter inside me. This is not what is supposed to be happening with my life. I’ve opened my store, made my dream a reality. Now I’m supposed to be keeping my eyes wide open for my perfect person, for that serendipitous moment we’ll meet and my happily ever after begins.