Page 65 of Lick
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I was just looking at your earrings. Do they mean anything special?”
“Nope.” He gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Why were you frowning earlier?” He picked up a handful of mushrooms and started adding them to the pizzas. “You’re doing it again now.”
Crap. I kicked my heels, turned all the excuses over inside my head. I had no idea how he’d react to my knowing the things Lauren had told me. What would he think if I asked about them? Starting a fight did not appeal. But lying didn’t either. Withholding was lying, deep down where it mattered. I knew that.
“I talked to my friend Lauren today.”
“Mmhmm.”
I pushed my hands down between my legs and squeezed them tight, delaying. “She’s a really big fan.”
“Yeah, you said.” He gave me a smile. “Am I allowed to meet her, or is she off-limits like your dad?”
“You can meet my dad if you want.”
“I want. We’ll take a trip to Miami sometime soon and I’ll introduce you to mine, okay?”
“I’d like that.” I took a deep breath, let it out. “David, Lauren told me some things. And I don’t want to keep secrets from you. But I don’t know how happy you’re going to be about these things that she told me.”
He turned his head, narrowed his eyes. “Things?”
“About you.”
“Ah. I see.” He picked up two handfuls of grated cheese and sprinkled them across the pizzas. “So you hadn’t looked me up on Wikipedia or some shit?”
“No,” I said, horrified at the thought.
He grunted. “It’s no big deal. What do you want to know, Ev?”
I didn’t know what to say. So I picked up my soda and downed about half of it in one go. Bad idea—it didn’t help. Instead, it gave me a mild case of brain freeze, stinging above the bridge of my nose.
“Go on. Ask me whatever you want,” he said. He wasn’t happy. The angry monobrow from drawing his eyebrows together clued me in to that. I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone with such an expressive face as David. Or maybe he just fascinated me full stop.
“All right. What’s your favorite color?”
He scoffed. “That’s not one of the things your friend told you about.”
“You said I could ask whatever I wanted, and I want to know what your favorite color is.”
“Black. And I know it’s not really a color. I did miss a lot of school, but I was there that day.” His tongue played behind his cheek. “What’s yours?”
“Blue.” I watched as he opened the gargantuan oven door. The pizza trays clattered against the racks. “What’s your favorite song?”
“We’re covering all the basics, huh?”
“We are married. I thought it would be nice. We sort of skipped a lot of the getting-to-know-you stuff.”
“All right.” The side of his mouth kicked up and he gave me a look that said he was onto my game of avoidance. The faint smile set the world to rights.
“I got a lot of favorite music,” he said. “‘Four Sticks’ by Led Zeppelin, that’s up there. Yours is ‘Need You Now’ by Lady Antebellum, as sung by an Elvis impersonator. Sadly.”
“Come on, I was under the influence. That’s not fair.”
“But it is true.”
“Maybe.” I still wished I could remember it. “Favorite book?”
