by Lindsey Hart
“Including me.”
Rin’s face flames bright red. “No. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying. Everyone says stupid stuff like that. Everyone is always body shaming. We talk about body positivity out there, but yeah. It doesn’t equate to our line of work, and you know that. You have to know that. Even as a dude, you have to know what I’m saying is true. I’ve grown a pretty thick skin. Still. There’s this part of me that wants to stick it to Brad when he sees I’ve changed. That I had the courage to actually create clothes for people like me. People who he said would never get a man to love them because they’re not pretty enough in his books. Honestly, it was the genetics thing that really got me.”
“It’s insane that you gave this guy the time of day. Why? Why did you?”
Rin sighs. “Honestly, he was pretty charming at the start. He didn’t act that way. It was sneakier than that. He would make comments along those lines, but never about me. Just kind of when I was within hearing. It never got to the point of out and out shaming and meanness until near the end. I got tired of it pretty fast. I don’t know why I couldn’t see through him before. I guess—I guess everyone wants to—to be loved. Like you said. And I’m not—that…experienced.” At least she finishes, though the words come out strained. “Honestly, I don’t know, okay? It was a big mistake. One of those blips in my life I seriously regret. Just like I regret ever trying to please my mother even once. I should have known better. I’ll just file my time with Brad under the category of massive regrets. I’m sure you’ve had your stupid moments yourself.”
I’m saved from having to answer when the buzzer blares somewhere in the place. It sounds old and rusty, like the ghost of the granny who owns this place. Okay, so she’s not a ghost. I’m not serious. My mom would have cut off my balls for disrespecting an old lady like that, even in my thoughts.
“Thank god the pizza guy found the place. I’m about two minutes away from some major hanger.”
“Hanger?”
“Okay, just minutes away from death then. How could you leave me here to wilt away?”
“I didn’t lock you here. You’re free to come and go as you want. And I told you they’d be able to find the place. It’s pretty obvious it’s been converted into condos. There are buzzers on the outside. And you can see the mailboxes through the door.”
“Hopefully, the smell doesn’t escape. The junkyard dogs might escape. I am seriously going to go into a major rage if I don’t get the pizza up here. Stat.”
“Does anyone even say stat anymore? And by the way, Hardy is a super nice dog. And it’s not a junkyard. And I doubt he would eat your gross pizza with the ten tons of nasty pineapple.” Rin huffs and goes to spin on her heel, but unfortunately for her, the toe of her shoe catches in a discarded doily that mysteriously appeared in the middle of the floor. The entrance isn’t far from the kitchen, and I’d done some pretty wild flinging of random objects in my frantic search for nourishment.
She lets out a blood-curdling scream—one guaranteed to bring the entire building down on us and probably half the city’s worth of cops—flails wildly, lets out an even higher-pitched scream, and wobbles forward and back.
I can’t just sand there. I move. I have to. I’m a gentleman.
So, when one of my hand catches her around the waist, and the other hand ends up rather unceremoniously on her breast, I swear it’s an accident.
CHAPTER 9
Rin
I’m not known to be clumsy. Usually.
Then again, I also don’t pay guys to fake date me. Usually.
I don’t get easily flustered. Usually.
I also don’t get turned on by a flashing smile, dimples, and piercing blue eyes. Usually.
I don’t know what I’m doing, spilling secrets about myself. Telling this guy everything he shouldn’t know. I’m like the overused open book. Gaping open. My pages on full display. The pizza is a welcome distraction, and I turn way too fast, ready to make a hasty exit, get my scrambled wits back together, and do the whole suck-it-up buttercup routine, so the bridge of my nose stops burning, and my throat doesn’t feel like someone just jammed an entire roll of toilet paper down it. I turn too fast. I was never very good at physics, or maybe this belongs more in the bio realm or maybe even chem, but I obviously break every single law of motion and gravity or whatever out there that applies to keep me standing upright and not end up on my face.
I feel the tip of my shoe hit something soft. I have too much momentum behind my movement to get myself under control. All of a sudden, my arms are doing some crazy windmill thing, and I’m flying. Not like a bird. Nope. Okay, I’m not flying. I’m a crazed mess careening straight for disaster. I just hope I can get my arms out in time to catch myself so I don’t break my face on the way down.
And then.
And then…strong hands. Steady arms. One locks around my waist, the other brushes along the underside of my chest and ends up…right on my left boob.
I stop. I stop falling. I stop careering. I stop moving. I stop breathing. I stop everything.
Because. Because—Aiden Builder. That’s the because. He’s the because.
His face is a few inches from mine even though there is about a foot height disparity between us. His hand is splayed at my waist, and I can feel his strong, masculine fingers right through the thin, silky fabric of the tunic I have on. His fingers are splayed over my hip and belly, and yeah, it feels forbidden. It feels right, probably because he has his hand on my boob.
“Careful,” Aiden warns, but he might as well be talking to himself too. Or maybe he’s just talking to me, but it’s not to tell me not to fall on my face or ass again.
A wicked heat curls through my belly, which feels tight and cramped under his hand. His fingers move slowly, sliding away. His other hand moves too; off my breast. I can’t breathe. There is nothing. Nothing but his touch. His hand feels like it’s burning through my clothing. He makes sure I’m steady on my feet before he takes a step back. His eyes are on mine the entire time. I already know neither of us is going to mention the boob graze. It wasn’t intentional. He was just trying to save me.
I also know my eyes flick all over the place, because I know I’m scarlet, and I’m never going to win a staring contest with someone who looks like Aiden because it freaking hurts the eyes to look at all that delicious, gorgeous maleness.
“I—uh—er…” Yeah. Language apparently isn’t my strong suit at the moment, either.
“I’ll go get the pizza.” Aiden takes a step back, bends at the waist, and stoops to pick something up. A doily. A freaking doily. He holds it out for inspection. “Grannies are dangerous creatures. She clearly booby-trapped the place before she left. Your friend, the blonde, the one running the show, the one forcing you to do things you don’t really want to do in the name of revenge but things I think you secretly want to do, probably didn’t pay her enough. Or she resented the intrusion into her privacy and wanted to leave one last parting shot before she shipped off to Paris for the best few months of her life.”
“Uh—you like Paris?” It’s a stupid thing to say, and my words come out all wrong past my very dry, very scratchy throat. Clearly, they catch Aiden by surprise, because he stops. He studies me with those pale blue eyes. They’re not so pale when they’re snapping with interest. A smirk finally turns up his lips.
“Yeah. I like Paris. Not as much as other places, but more than I like a hell of a lot of others too.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Why?” He casually flicks the doily onto the nearby table.
Flustered, all I can do is shrug. I search for something snappy to come back with, but like my body, my brain isn’t functioning properly at the moment. It’s a scrambled mess. I feel like there’s a whole bunch of pent up energy there. Like I need to defy my friend’s wishes and take up jogging after all. Like I could run a marathon without training so much as a second. It’s a pretty ridiculous thought because I’ve never even so much a
s gone running once. Okay, maybe back when I was sixteen or something. I seem to recall something about the worst side stitch and leg cramps in my life.
There’s a moment of loaded silence that passes, and then Aiden shrugs too. “I’ll get the pizza. Just—stay right there. Don’t move. There might be other traps set.”
I roll my eyes at that, but Aiden is already nearly sprinting past me. He must be starving because he’s gone for only a few minutes before he’s back, carrying the box with the abomination of a pizza in it. He sets it down on the table, flips the lid, and actually takes a step back to admire it.
“That’s gross. A grosterpiece. That’s what that is.”
“What?” Aiden asks absently. “Oh. A grosterpiece. A gross masterpiece. I get what you did there. Very clever.” He steps close, squinting. “What kind of fuckery is this?” he asks from out of nowhere. He leans in a little closer, and it’s obvious he doesn’t like what he sees. “I asked for extra pineapple. More pineapple after that. A gross amount of pineapple on top. You’d think they’d get the hint. This is not nearly enough pineapple.”
“I’m pretty sure I can see at least six layers from here.”
“Not possible. There’s like, twelve pieces per slice. That’s not nearly an acceptable fruit per dough, sauce, and cheese ratio.”
“I didn’t know pizza was rocket science.”
Aiden glances around distractedly. “I can’t believe I gave that guy a tip! He forgot my barbeque sauce! Or they never included it in the first place. Why would they? They can’t even figure out an acceptable amount of pineapple to put on.” With a grunt, Aiden folds the box back up.
I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m just glad he’s not going to eat that abomination. I can smell it from here, and it smells absolutely toxic. Like a tropical meltdown. That sigh is short-lived because Aiden is looking at me. Really looking at me. Those indigos are filled up with wild heat. Heat, which spreads to me through some crazy sort of osmosis. It fills my belly, churns in my limbs, and creates some really strange friction in some naughtier areas. No, Santa, I haven’t been a good girl this year. That kind of heat. In those kind of naughty bits.
“W-what?” I stammer. “Why are you l-looking at me l-like that?”
“I’m trying to determine if you’d know of any good pizza places. Seeing as you clearly hate pineapple, I’m uncertain of whether your opinion of a good pizza can be trusted at all.”
I let out a sigh of relief. I can tell he’s mocking me in a playful, poking fun kind of way. This is what my friends do. They say things like this. Cassie and Aria left earlier, right after our morning coffee gossip session back at my place. They gave me their two cents, okay, they gave me more like their two hundred dollars worth of opinions, and shipped out, leaving me on my own.
With Aiden Builder.
Right. They left me on my own in my own place. Not with Aiden Builder. But I’m here now. Standing a few feet away. I realize I haven’t moved since he touched me. The world literally stopped when his hands connected with my body. I don’t think it properly restarted again.
“Er—pizza. Yes. I—pizza. Right. I—pizza.” Why can I not freaking stop saying pizza like an ornery two-year-old who randomly picked that word as the one and only word she knows how to say and does it on repeat, ceaselessly, to annoy the hell out of her parents? Right. Because it feels like a volcano of heat is currently erupting inside of my stomach and chest.
“Yes, pizza.” Aiden shoots me a knowing grin. He’s probably very used to disarming or discomfiting women with nothing more than a single glance.
That makes me think about how many women he’s been with in the past. Not that I really even want to go there. And then I think about me. God, I’m probably so far from his type, it’s laughable. I’m probably like the pizza he thought he was going to get—no, not that one. The one that actually arrived.
“Pizza?” I have to say something. Anything. Anything to stop the sudden churning of discomfort in my stomach.
“Yeah. You know. The thing on the table. Only a thousand times better. That’s what I’m going for. If you don’t know of any places, I’ll do a search. But the place I ordered from got four stars out of five, so I don’t think the ratings can be trusted. I was hoping for the opinion of a local.”
“The same local who lives and wallows in asbestos and lead paint but deems it adequate living accommodations?”
“One and the same.” Aiden winks at me, and when he grins, I get a full load of his dimples. Double dimples. He has one in each cheek. They’re utterly fascinating, even more so because I think that he can control them based on what kind of smile he offers someone. I haven’t seen them in any of his modeling shots before. Not that I recall. And I think I would recall.
Because they’re devastating.
“I—er—there’s this place—it’s not close to here, but it’s good. They make custom pizzas. You can stand there and tell them to keep going with the pineapple. I don’t know if that’s what you want, but—”
“That’s what I want. Unless they have gross canned pineapple and not the real deal. I want the real deal.”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
“H-how?” Why can’t I produce normal language to save my soul?
“Give it a try.”
“What? Give what a try?”
“The pizza place.”
Right. I’m pretty sure I turn purple, which reminds me about what Aiden said earlier about getting all flustered and purple. God. Why do I have to prove him right?
“I’ll get my keys.” I spin around and manage to leave with a shred of dignity left. Okay, maybe less than a shred. I’ve never been so uncomfortable around another person in my life. I’ve never felt like my body was a gooey, steaming pile of something. Not poop. Something nice. Like, melted marshmallows or something. The kind that are toasted to perfection. Not the ones that get burnt right away but are still cold in the middle.
That’s the way Brad made me feel.
Less than perfect on the outside. Cold on the inside.
But not Aiden.
I don’t know what to do with that, or with the crazy sensations battling it out inside of me—literally, with full boxing gear and everything—so I grab my keys, snatch up my purse, and head back to pick up my fake boyfriend.
Which is a problem. All of it. Because what he makes me feel is anything but fake. And it’s not gross either—not like the monstrosity of a pizza.
CHAPTER 10
Aiden
I’m mildly surprised—mildly being the understatement of the year, but Rin drives us to some hole-in-the-wall pizza joint that looks like it serves up last night’s trash stolen from the dumpsters behind other two-star restaurants, but damn. Despite the rather nefarious aura which promises food poisoning, the pizza is pretty damn amazing.
Not only did they make it right in front of me, but they also had real pineapples. Which they grilled. I ended up getting a twelve-inch with as much pineapple as I can handle. A heavenly dousing of barbeque sauce and a sprinkle of fresh basil tops it off.
Rin sits across from me. We’re jammed into the world’s smallest booth. The inside of the place looks like a cross between a fifties diner and all the random junk whoever owns this place found in the trash while dumpster diving. In short, I like it. It’s not fancy. It’s not classy. It’s the kind of place I would have grown up eating at.
And the pizza is damn delicious.
I try not to moan as I sink my teeth into the first bite. My stomach contracts with hunger, and at this point, I’m so starved I think that even if this stuff did come out of a dumpster, I’d probably still eat it and give the joint a five-star rating.
“It’s good, huh?” Rin gives me a sardonic glance. She got a pizza too. I didn’t think she would, but she surprised me.
“I don’t know how you can sit there and look at my pizza like it’s an abomination when all you got was vegeta
bles. And weird ones. Who puts cauliflower on pizza?”
“It’s cauliflower crust. It’s really good, actually.”
“Gross. I see a bunch of other nasty stuff on there. For one, hot sauce instead of pizza sauce? Lettuce? Three kinds of hot peppers? I’ll give you a point for the basil because that stuff is incredible, but corn? Black beans? Salsa? Green peppers? Roasted tomatoes? Two kinds of olives? The only thing you didn’t get was the pineapple, and it’s the only edible thing up there.”
“I could comment on yours since the sickeningly sweet stench of all that pineapple keeps reaching me, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be nice and not say anything because I’m not the one who has to eat it.”
Rin sticks out her bottom lip in a fake pout, and my balls shrivel up. In a good way. The good kind of shriveling. They’re shriveling because it currently feels like someone just wedged them between my leg and the heel of their boot. In short, they hurt, but unlike being wedged between a boot and a hard place, it’s a good kind of pain. Rin is pretty intriguing, especially because I think I’m right about her. She’s nothing like what people probably think she is. She’s actually pretty cool when it comes right down to it.
And I’d still like to nut punch her douchebag of an ex. No wonder she wants to get back at the guy. I don’t blame her. The guy was a turd of the first-class variety. A golden turd. Not the museum-worthy kind, though. More like goldplated. Like someone took a shit in gold leaf foil at a crafting session. Who would do that? Probably only Brad whatever-his-last-name-is.
I shove a piece almost wholly into my mouth and chew thoughtfully. This pizza is foodgasm at its finest. My pizza is messy as hell, but do I care that I’m stuffing it into my mouth at an alarming rate? That I’m likely slathered in barbeque sauce and wearing half the pineapple? Not at all.
“So. The clothing line—” Rin starts, but I cut her off.