Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,18
vague. “Not really.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t really know,” Kate admitted. “He’d mention a restaurant we both wanted to try or an exhibit we both wanted to see, and he kept saying things like, ‘We should go!’ But I couldn’t tell if he meant it as a date or was just being polite.”
Kennedy turned and faced the railing again, his turn to study the street below. “Probably a date,” he said. “Though for what it’s worth, he’s lying if he says he’s excited about museum exhibits. They’re not his thing.”
“Well, maybe you could lend him your season tickets,” she teased. She knew Kennedy loved his museums.
He rewarded her with a half smile that revealed his left dimple. “Never.”
“Nerd.”
“They’re underappreciated,” he said, his tone a little gruff, as though embarrassed but unable to keep from defending New York’s museums.
“They are,” Kate agreed, deciding to give him a break. “It kills me how often they’re derided as tourist traps. So many locals take them for granted.”
“But not you?” he asked skeptically.
“Well, I’m not going to start collecting globes and crap like you, but yeah . . . I do love a good museum,” she said. Kate didn’t have a specific passion for art, or history, or science. She just liked knowing that museums existed. She liked the feeling of stepping outside New York to a different world, whether it be Impressionist paintings, quirky modern art, or the planetarium, all without actually leaving New York. “Our secret?”
“That we’re cultured?”
She laughed. “I’m cultured. You’re pretentious.”
“Prove it.”
“That you’re pretentious?” she asked, excited at the prospect. “Where to begin. Let’s see, you always—”
He stopped her words, not with a retort or even the usual scowl but by reaching out and setting his fingers against her mouth.
They both froze, and her eyes flew to his. It wasn’t a caress, but neither was it a playful shut-up kind of gesture. It was somewhere in between, his three middle fingers resting lightly over her mouth, his pinkie finger brushing against her jaw, softly, as if by accident.
He met her eyes for only a second before his gaze dropped to his fingers. He frowned slightly, as though puzzled to find himself touching her. But he couldn’t be half as puzzled as she was.
Or as electrified.
Slowly, Kennedy let his hand drop, his fist clenching hard and fast, so quickly she thought she’d imagined it, before he resumed his former position, casually, as though nothing had happened at all. “I didn’t mean list the ways I’m pretentious. I meant tell me the ways you’re cultured.”
“Ah.” She tried to gather her thoughts, but she could still feel the warmth of his touch. Wanted to replay it a thousand times over. Wanted to ask her friends what the heck it had meant . . .
He’d asked her something. What was it? Right, culture.
“I used to dance.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Ballet,” she clarified, “until I was seventeen and decided I didn’t want it badly enough to go all the way. I probably wasn’t talented enough, either. But I still love it. I’d go more often if it wasn’t so expensive.”
“I didn’t know that about you.”
She shrugged. She doubted Matt or Ian did, either. “It’s not your job to know things about me. It’s mine to know things about you.”
He was quiet for a moment, looking thoughtful. “What else?”
“Um . . .” She bit her lip and considered. “I love old books. I mostly just read classics on my Kindle, because my apartment’s too small to keep much of anything. Someday, though, I’m going to have a collection of first editions. Or second or third editions. Whatever. But, I should be honest, I’m also really into young adult books. If it’s for a teen, I love it. If it’s got a vampire or an alien and a love story, I really love it. Go ahead. Judge.”
He leaned toward her and spoke quietly, pointing at himself. “Spy novels.”
She gasped in mock horror. “No. You? Who quotes Shakespeare?”
He gave another of his half smiles. Left dimple again. “What else?”
“I play chess. I played every weekend with my grandfather, and then every day when he lived with us while I was in high school.”
“You guys still play?”
“No, he’s passed now,” she said a little wistfully. She hadn’t thought about those quiet nights with a chessboard and an old soul in ages.
Kennedy was silent, then turned his head over his shoulder for a moment, scanning the slowly dwindling crowd. “You have to do anything else for the party?”
“What do you