I frowned before saying my ultimate nerdy pick-up line "Boy, you like a best seller, and I am like a book. I could be on you for weeks."

"Consider me seduced." He deadpanned, obviously not meaning it.

"Fine then." I resulted to before smiling sweetly "I will get the waiter back and see if he likes my pickup lines."

"No." Stone growled "You will not."

"Did you like them then?" I asked, my smile turning triumphant.

"Yes."

"I knew those lines would do it for you, nerd" I asserted "Now if this was a date, this would be the time that if I did not feel it between us, I would go to the bathroom. As you tell me every day, I am small. I would fit right through the bathroom window and make my escape."

"And if you are feeling it?" He questioned.

"Then I would stay."

We had continued our smart remarks back and forward like a tennis match until I was trying to devour my way through the last bit of pizza.

I decided to ask him more about himself because I wanted to know, and it because it was an anti-data "So do you think you will run a mechanics shop after school?"

"I doubt I will leave Mike's." Stone replied, "The old man is good company."

"Yeah, he seems pretty cool. Cool and meddling." I said as I recalled the whole plot against me to reveal my name "How long have you known him?"

"Five years."

"Five years?" I repeated, "That means you have been working with him since you were barely a teenager."

He nodded "I have always been a damn good mechanic."

"I will give you that." I begrudgingly admitted, "Kermit is running smoother than ever."

"So, what about you?"

"What about me?" I asked, confused.

He smirks "What does Drizella Miller, The Mean Green Machine, plan for herself?"

I find myself rolling my eyes at him quoting me on from earlier that day.

"I would love to teach literature. So, I will probably go to college and study English." I answered "I want to meet someone and settle down. Start a family. The whole nine yards."

Stone smiled but it seemed more to himself. The smile felt secretive.

"Did you not say you wanted to write a book?" He remembered.

"Maybe in the future." I replied, "I am struggling to find inspiration."

"Surely you have something, Medusa."

"I could always write about an evil dictator called Balentine Bone." I suggested while giggling.

He pretended to scowl at my remark and the weird twist on his name.

"Is he the love interest in the story?" Stone asked after a few seconds of silence.

I breathed out "He was meant to be the heroine's antagonist. Her acqenemy."

His head cocked to the side and his rough sounding voice spoke up "I can't see why he can’t be both."

"Neither can I." I admitted quietly so that he could not hear it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight