by Lily Kate
“I have to agree.” Ryan grins. “So, when’s your next show?”
“What?” Lisa blinks up at him.
“Your next show,” I say, patting Ryan on the chest, not sure how or why we’ve become so comfortable so quickly. I turn back to Lisa. “When is it? We’ll be there—or, I mean, I will, and maybe Ryan too, if he wants to come?”
“Of course,” he agrees. “That’s why I asked.”
Lisa opens and shuts her mouth a few times. “That’s a good question. Bruce, you got any more openings this week?”
Bruce the bouncer shrugs. “They don’t tell me those things.”
Lisa can’t wipe the shit-eating grin off her face. “It feels different, Andi, when there’s more than one person in the audience—different in a good way. And they laughed! At things I said! Can you freaking believe it?”
Another laugh bubbles up in my giddy friend.
“Of course I can believe it!” I tell her. “They loved you in there. I’ll be surprised if you don’t get a call to do the show next week. Hell, I’ll be surprised if they invite Luke Donahue back at all. I think you might’ve replaced him.”
“You think?” That flash of desperation, the self-doubt that never quite leaves a comedian’s soul, appears in her eyes. “Anyway, I’m not gonna worry about it now. A few of the others are grabbing a drink at the bar. You guys wanna come?”
I flick my eyes up to Ryan and wait for his answer.
“I have an early meeting in the morning, so I can’t make it,” he says, “but Andi, if you want to stay, I’ll call a cab and leave you my car, or vice versa.”
“Of course, I understand,” Lisa says. She releases me from the best-friend pact with a whisper. “Go with him. Thanks for coming in the first place.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it.” I stop, clasping a hand over my mouth, wondering where on earth that we came from. Praying Ryan didn’t notice, I continue quickly. “Your first big show was a success. You should celebrate all night long.”
Lisa gives me one last hug and a knowing look, then disappears among the catcalls from her friends waiting at the bar.
I turn to face Ryan. He’s wearing a grin the size of a banana.
“Where are we going next?” he asks, looping his arm through mine.
“Shut up,” I say. “I thought this whole thing was fake, anyway.”
“I didn’t say I’d fake date you,” he says. “I have to convince you to spend a weekend—or at least a few hours—with my family. I might as well make it worth your time.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I could use a ride home, then.”
“You got it, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER 15
Andi
“This is neither my home, nor your home.” I glance out the window after a short drive from the comedy club. We haven’t yet entered the ritzy area of Los Feliz, but we also haven’t made our way back to my stomping grounds. We are somewhere in between.
“You are accurate, but it is the best coffee shop around.” Ryan looks across the center console to where I sit huddled in the passenger’s seat. “Fancy a cappuccino?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Is this another fake date?”
He climbs out of the car, and I beat him to the door this time. He takes my hand anyway and marches me to the front of the cafe. “It feels pretty real to me.”
“I thought—”
“I’m kidding,” he says. “Your car is at my house, and I assume you want to drive home tonight. You probably need another hour or two before you’re good to go. I figure I might as well show you a good cup of coffee.”
Of course, I say to myself. All in one sentence he’s told me that I’d better find my way home tonight, that he has no intention of this being a real date, and that I’m probably an idiot for thinking this was anything more than an attempt to sober me up.
So I do what Andi Peretti does best—I make awkward conversation until the mugs arrive. Thankfully, they give my hands a nice distraction as I play with the spoon and the sugar packets.
Sitting across the table from Ryan Pierce is hard work. He’s intimidating because he’s so nice, not to mention smoking hot. So, I play with more sugar packets.
“This is the best espresso I’ve ever tasted.” I sip my frothy, foamy, milky cappuccino. The diner is cute, small, and out of the way, so out of the way of normal LA traffic that we’re the only customers at this hour, even though it’s now two thirty in the morning. I suspect that soon, we might encounter the post-bar-closing rush.
My mind travels back to the way Ryan led me inside, his arm never leaving the small of my back, his fingers brushing the skin between the bottom of my tank and the top of my jeans. He didn’t remove his hand when the waitress greeted him by name, or when she showed us to his “usual” table in the corner. Only when I removed my leather jacket and slid into the booth did he move to sit across from me.
“Hang on, you’ve got some foam right here…” He extends a thumb, hovering it above my lip. “May I?”
“Embarrassing.” I swipe at my own lip, saving his fingers from having to remove the bit of froth just hanging out on my upper lip.
I’m an adult—I should be able to control where the food goes when I consume it.
Ryan brings his hand back, looking almost disappointed. Then, he reaches for my cup. “May I?”
“Have a sip? Go ahead.” I look over at his cup. “I’d ask for a sip of yours, but I can’t handle black coffee. It looks like mud.”
Ryan takes a sip of my cappuccino, and when he pulls the cup away from his mouth, his lips are coated in foam.
I laugh at the image, a surprisingly loud sound in the quiet diner. A waitress looks our way with a frown, but Ryan is oblivious to her. I shift in my seat and try to be oblivious, just like Ryan.
“May I?” I extend my thumb toward his lips, mimicking his actions.
Ryan’s hand snakes out and clasps my wrist.
“You may…” His eyes twinkle. “But you can’t use your hands.”
My mouth goes dry. Then I say the dumbest thing that could possibly pop into my mind. “What do you want me to use?”
“For starters, your imagination.”
I clear my throat, realizing I almost dropped the ball on flirting with Ryan Pierce. He just gave me another chance, and I’m not about to mess this one up.
“No hands, you say?” I try to be all calm and seductive, but I’m not convinced it’s working. “Well, I can’t reach you from all the way over there.”
“We can fix that.” He stands and gestures to the open space on my side of the booth. “May I?”
“I suppose I can make room.” I scooch over the smallest bit. “Take a seat.”
He sits, the scent of him enough to send my stomach into a rush of nerves. Those brown eyes melt mine as he leans close. “Go on, you can reach me now.”
The drop of foam is all but gone by now since he ran his tongue over his lips. Even so, I think he might still want me to kiss him—but this isn’t right; we agreed to be friends. Not go on dates.
“Let me give you a hint.” Ryan leans toward me, his mouth balanced a hair’s breadth from mine.
I find myself drawn toward him, tilting, my lips falling toward his, until—
“More coffee?” the waitress asks loudly.
Ryan, to his credit, doesn’t look at all embarrassed. On the other hand, I look like a red hot chili pepper.
“I think I’m good.” I push my mug forward and turn to Ryan. “I should head home, now, anyway. You said you have an early morning.”
“I don’t have an early morning,” Ryan says, pulling his credit card out of his wallet and handing it to the waitress. “I just wanted some time alone with you instead of being crammed like sardines into a bar and going hoarse trying to talk over the music.”
“Well, I do have class tomorrow,” I tell him, trying not to show my surprise. “And I’m fine to drive now, really. I should be going.”
“Thanks, Di
anne,” Ryan says pointedly to the waitress, who is standing there listening to us with unabashed curiosity. “That’ll be all.”
“Sorry,” I say once she’s gone. “I don’t think she likes me much.”
“She’s just not used to seeing me here with anyone else. Whenever I’m staying with Lawrence—my brother—I make it a point to come here. Besides my brother and Lilia, I don’t know many people, so I tend to come here alone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, I like it. Sometimes I need to get out of the house—it’s not my house, and it’s exhausting always being a guest. Sometimes it’s a relief to just sit in the corner. Nobody recognizes me here. It was actually Dianne who gave me her copy of Harry Potter when she heard I hadn’t yet read it.”
My heart both warms and constricts at the thought of Ryan sitting here alone, in the corner, with nothing but a book for company. For some reason, the image carries both a sadness and a peacefulness with it.
“Ready?”
While I lose myself in a daydream, Ryan signs the check, leaves a twenty on the table, and stands. “I can bring you home.”
“Your home is fine,” I say. Then I quickly clarify, “I mean, to my car, which is at your home—or your brother’s home, whatever. You know what I mean.”
“There’s an extra guest bed if you’d like to stay.” That arm of his sneaks around my waist and he toys with the end of my shirt. “You’re welcome to crash.”
His hand, which is moving closer and closer toward my girl parts, is sending contradictory signals from what his mouth is telling me. His mouth is saying I can crash at his place as one of the guys while his hand is pretty damn close to getting in my pants. My stomach lights on fire, and I realize that if he tiptoed those fingers a few inches farther down, I wouldn’t mind all that much.
Then Dianne, the waitress, gives me a scathing look as we leave the restaurant, and I’m brought back to reality. I’m Andi Peretti, struggling comic and delivery girl, and he’s…well, he’s Ryan.
“I’m fine to drive,” I tell him. “Thank you for the offer, though.”
Ryan pauses right outside the diner, holding the door open for me. “I know you’re fine to drive.” He winks then pulls me close, his arm low on my hip. “But that wasn’t the question.”
There are those damn mixed signals again. If he doesn’t stop, I might just stay over…in his bed…without pants.
CHAPTER 16
Andi
“Were you born funny?” Ryan asks as we near his house. “Or is it something you’ve practiced?”
“Funny?” I smile. We’ve spent most of the ride home chatting about the comedy industry. Whether Ryan is actually curious or just trying to make small talk, I can’t quite tell. “Being funny is way harder than it looks.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’ve written thousands of words, practiced hundreds of hours of standup, all to whittle my routine down to a ten minute punch that will hopefully make one person laugh.”
“I’d love to see your bit.”
I shake my head. “I’m too self-conscious.”
“You just said you’ve practiced for hundreds of hours.”
“That doesn’t mean it gets any easier.”
“Sort of like hockey, then.”
“What do you mean?” I frown. “Don’t you just use that little stick thingy to shoot the little black thingy toward the goal?”
“You think hockey is hitting a little black thing with a stick.” He laughs, a sound that warms my heart. “I think being a comedian is saying funny things and making people laugh.”
“Point taken,” I say, a smile curving up my lips.
“I’ve practiced for hundreds of hours, skated for decades, dribbled, shot pucks, studied strategy—all of it, for most of my life, and it all comes down to a few minutes, most of the time. Either I choke on the winning goal or I nail it; there’s not much of an in between.”
“Huh.” I sit, still pondering his words. “I’ve never thought of it like that before, but standup is the same. At the end of the day, when I get in front of the crowd, I either nail it or I bomb completely, all in a few minutes, despite the millions of words I’ve written to get there.”
“It looks easy to everyone else, until they go to try it.”
“Exactly!”
I’d never bonded over my passion with anyone except Lisa. It is so hard for my accounting friends or my business-oriented dad to understand it at all. The hours of preparation, the work that may never amount to anything, the pressure of those moments when it’s finally time to perform, the sheer adrenaline of knowing I killed it onstage.
Ryan understands completely. I can feel it, both in his words and in the way he talks about hockey. We might be from different worlds, but we speak the same language.
It’s then that Ryan parks his brother’s BMW behind my car. I notice he leaves plenty of space. I also notice my bumper sitting on the sidewalk. It’s cute; he’s put a little blanket over it, almost as if to keep the thing warm.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m really sorry about that.”
“It’s our new art installation,” he says. “I like it.”
“I bet your brother doesn’t.”
“I’ve convinced him to leave it for a while, until we can get you sorted—hopefully with a new car.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then wait for a long moment. Neither of us moves. “I had a really nice time tonight.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a ride home?” Ryan’s eyebrows crinkle in concern. “We can figure something out for the morning. I can pick you up before class.”
“No, I’m fine. The coffee helped, and it’s been almost two hours since my last drink. Thanks, though, I appreciate it.”
Ryan leans over the center console, bringing his hand behind my head and pulling me in toward him gently, as if giving me every opportunity to say no. I don’t, because I’m not insane. Ryan Pierce is about to kiss me, and I’m going to let it happen.
But he doesn’t kiss me; he merely brushes his lips against my cheek and whispers in my ear. “I’m going to see your standup routine, sooner or later,” he says. “Mark my words.”
I freeze. “Okay,” I say, then get out of the car before I do something stupid and pucker up my lips for a kiss that will never come. “Have a great night.”
“Andi—”
“I’ll talk to you soon!” I’m already halfway out the door as he calls my name. I walk slowly to my car, giving him plenty of time to get my attention in case he has something else to say. He doesn’t, apparently.
I climb into my clunker and make my way home on nothing but a prayer. I head straight to Peretti’s Pizza, my mind whirling with whatever I got myself into tonight.
Shit, I think, making my way inside the restaurant.
I’m Ryan’s fake girlfriend.
A few hours ago, I thought it was the best proposal ever.
But now, I’m not so sure. Being so close to Ryan but not being able to touch him is like being put in a room with an ice cream buffet and being told you can only look, maybe drool a little. Ryan Pierce is my ice cream buffet, and I want him bad.
CHAPTER 17
Ryan
I let her walk away. I should call her back, press my lips to hers like I know she wants. I can feel it, the electricity between us. Unless I’ve completely lost my touch, Andi wants me too. I thought she wasn’t looking for anything physical, but I am beginning to think that’s not accurate.
When I leaned in close, her breath hitched in her throat. She inhaled like she wanted something more than a wave goodbye or a ride home. I wanted more, too, but I missed the boat. Now it’s too late, and she’s halfway home while I’m stuck with a hard-on that won’t quit.
So I climb into the shower—again—and take care of myself before getting into bed. I don’t have an early meeting tomorrow, but I do have a chat with the Ice Queen at lunch, and lunch is going to come fast—just like I did while thi
nking about Andi Peretti and her curvy little figure.
On a whim, I pull out my phone and send her a text. It’s simple, but I hope it’s direct.
Ryan: Preseason scrimmage in LA next Saturday. Come watch, and don’t make plans after.
My phone beeps a second later with her response.
Andi: Is this a date?
I wait a few minutes before responding, but only because I can’t think of what to say. I know I’m not letting her walk away again. If she comes to my game, watches me play, and lets me take her out to dinner after, I’ll do everything in my power to get her back here. Alone. Naked.
I decide not to mince my words and respond quickly.
Ryan: Yes. Clothing is optional.
CHAPTER 18
Andi
“So, can you get us tickets?” Gio asks, leaning against the pizza counter while Angela fawns over his orange self. “Me and Ang wanna go.”
Two weeks have passed since my deal was made with Ryan. I meant to go to his game last Saturday, but I was forced to work last minute by my dad, and one doesn’t argue with my dad when he is hangry.
Ryan and I tried to hang out afterward, but he’d gotten a minor injury during the game and needed to ice and take care of it. Since then, we’ve been playing phone tag, and I have to admit the whole thing is fun—really fun.
He texts me horrible jokes to use for standup, and I text him back offering awful hockey advice. It sounds stupid, but…it’s our thing.
“I can’t,” I say to Gio, Angela’s boy-toy of the week. He’s even oranger than she is, and probably spray tans more. I’m getting dizzy with the fumes from the pair of them. “Sorry.”
Gio frowns, then reaches across the counter and drags Angela into his arms. He dips her so low her head nearly smacks the ground, and he gives her a sloppy, smoochy kiss. “See you at home, baby. I’m taking you out to dinner then. Screw hockey.”
Angela sighs with gusto as Gio leaves. “Isn’t he a hunk?”