“I’m totally telling my sister that you said I’m fancy. She thinks I’m still half-Neanderthal. Honestly, she’s not wrong,” he says, throwing a thankfully now-clean hand on my thigh. “But Neanderthals have to be prepared for messes too. Especially after that one episode where Miles got gelato on everything.” He shudders at the memory of the mess.

“Gelato?” I echo incredulously. “I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never even had gelato, much less made a mess of it. Ice cream, shakes, malts . . . those I can make a mess with. Which I clean up with a leftover, half-wrinkled napkin from the Dairy Palace like a normal human being. Five-year-olds with gelato . . . fancy.”

“Tissues aside, you just said we’re dating.” He’s grinning like I just gave him a free gelato with sprinkles and told him to have at it. “You having second thoughts about turning me down?”

“Second, and third, and bajillionth. Absolutely,” I confess, heavier than his teasing tone.

He cuts his eyes to me for a second, then back to the road, then repeats the move once more before boldly asking, “You’re not just using me for sex, are you?”

“Oh, my God, you can’t say stuff like that!” I squawk insecurely. “What the hell, Mr. Hale!”

“I want to make sure you’re not only after the goods and agreeing to a date because I said no sex until we go out officially.”

How does he say things like that with a straight face?

Because just listening to him say it has me grinning like I’m a middle-schooler, swooning like a love-struck romantic, and squirming like a woman who just swallowed a mouthful and really needs a little release of her own.

It’s harder than I’d like to admit, but I do it anyway. “It’s not just the sex.”

Tension I didn’t realize he was holding releases in his shoulders. “I like you too, Miss Walker. Ya weirdo.”

Somehow, when he says that word, it doesn’t hurt. It’s funny, like we’re being weird together, even though he’s amazingly not only un-weird but normal.

* * *

We go to my house to look through the trash. Not because it’s a trailer but because it’s closer and I have gloves. I insist on those, and Blake is thankful and agrees easily. “Trash bags are one thing. Actual trash is another.”

That decided, we get to work. I spread out wrapping paper on the kitchen floor because I don’t want to do this outside where there are prying eyes, plus, it’s all I have. Still, I promise myself that I’ll be mopping after this . . . and that I’m going out to buy one of those big blue tarps just in case something like this ever comes up again, as unlikely as that may be.