Page 100 of Revenge Puck
“I’ve always wanted a cat, though,” he tells me, setting a plate in front of me. “One of those fluffy gray ones that have a perpetual frown. Forever unimpressed.”
“Like you?”
He barely reacts to the barb—sets his own plate down, takes his seat beside me, and slowly turns his head in my direction.
“I don’t perpetually frown.”
“Sure you do,” I say, already twirling pasta onto my fork and letting it cool. “You always have a scowl like you’re disappointed in humanity.”
“That’s because Iam.” His chest rumbles. “Everyone disappoints me these days butyou. You’re a breath of sunshine and fresh air that I need in my lungs.”
He says it casually. Shoves pasta in his mouth and starts chewing, completely unbothered while I gape at him, as if he didn’t lob the emotional equivalent of a grenade across the counter.
My mouth falls open.
“Y-you cannotsaythings like that,” I inform him.
He looks up mid-chew and blinks, confused. “Like what?”
“Like I’m a b-breath of sunshine and fresh air you need in your lungs.”
He swallows. Takes a sip of wine to wash it down. “Why not? It’s true.”
My fork hovers uselessly over my plate. “That’s…” I shake my head. Clear my throat. “That’s not a n-normal thing to say between bites of pasta.”
He smirks around his fork. “You’d prefer I build up to it?”
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “A bit of warning would be nice.”
“Ten…nine…eight…” he begins counting dryly to tease me.
“Stop.”
He laughs softly as I stab another piece of pasta to keep my hands busy and grumble, “You can’t be disappointed in humanity and then randomly call me ‘sunshine.’”
Aaron grunts.
I try again. “What made you go home with me that first night? Now that I’m getting to know you, you don’t strike me as the type to have a one-night stand.”
His fork hovers over his plate, pasta hanging on for dear life.
“I’d had a horrible afternoon, a bad breakup, and…” He lets his sentence linger without finishing it.
I set my fork on the edge of my plate and muster up the courage to ask, “Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did you and your girlfriend break up?”
One second goes by.
Two.
Several more.
“She cheated.”
The words are flat and emotionless and matter-of-fact.
