Chapter 8
Blair
Okay, yikes. Her mother sounded like a piece of work. I didn’t want our time together to be all doom and gloom, so I switched gears. “So she’d be clutching her pearls if she knew you were in a truck with a mechanic?”
Missy blushed. “She’d need a recent paystub and last year’s taxes to know how to feel about it.”
Ouch. “I think I could win her over with my charm and good looks.” I flashed her a smile. “It’s working on you.”
She smirked. “Oh, you think so, huh?”
Challenge accepted. “You’re letting me work on your car. Pop your hood. Shove my socket wrench into your engine. Check out all your parts.”
“Oh my god, Blair,” she choked out.
“And look at you over there, grabbing my gear shifter. Flicking on my blinker lights.” I shook my head. “You’re falling for me, Missy.” Damn it, now I was half hard.
She shot me a look through slightly glazed eyes. “Don’t get ahead of yourself there, Romeo.”
I rested my arm across the seat between us and gave her my best smolder. “Hey, girl, are you an appendix? ‘Cause I don’t know anything about you, but I feel like I should take you out.”
Her cheeks turned a color that resembled the strawberries in the cooler, and she let out an impressive bray.
“Oh my god, I did not hear that, and I definitely did not just laugh so hard I snorted.”
She looked beautiful when she laughed, and adorable when she was embarrassed. I had a hard time taking my eyes off of her. “Alright, if you don’t like that one, how about this. Hey, girl, I’d like to take you to the movies, but they don’t let you bring your own snack.”
She rolled her eyes. “That was cheesy. There is no way that works.”
“You tell me.”
We pulled up to a red light, and she turned to face me.
“I’ve heard them all. Hey, I think you dropped something—my jaw.
Are you a campfire? ‘Cause you’re hot, and I want s’more.
Are you a bank loan? ‘Cause you got my interest. And my all-time favorite: Are you a medieval executioner? ‘Cause you’re torturing me with your rack.”
I laughed so hard that I started to cough and jostled my sore shoulder against the seat. “I’ll have to remember that executioner line. I can use it to pick up girls at the Renaissance fair.”
“My gift to you.” She gave a fake bow. The light changed, and we started to move again. “Do you usually go to the Renaissance fair to pick up girls?”
I shrugged with my good shoulder. “Well, no, but I’ve got a little more free time these days, so maybe I will start.”
“What changed?” she asked, her eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror to check on her daughter.
I wasn’t really planning on getting into my past, especially when I just got her laughing.
But she’d told me something personal, and I found I wanted to do the same.
“My parents had me as they were finishing high school. Then ten years later, they decided to have another kid, and another, and another. My mom passed away not long after that, so it was me and my dad raising three little boys. Now that my youngest brother is in high school, I am not needed as much. I can finally do my own thing without having to take care of a kid.” I realized what I said and snapped my mouth shut.
Shit.
“Oh, I didn’t mean—” I tried to say.
She cut me off. “It’s okay. We’re at different stages of life. You’re just getting out of parenting, and I am just getting into it.”
Right. I needed to remember that. Missy may be sweet and gorgeous, and playing the knight to her damsel in distress was boosting my ego.
But at the end of the day, I wasn’t looking to be anyone’s stepdad, and Missy came with strings—adorable strings with chubby cheeks.
Still, strings I didn’t want to get tangled in.