Tiger Lily - May Dawson Page 0,20
glass down, the ice cubes tinkling. “I know. It’s not fair—you’re always nice.”
I asked, “Were you mad because of how your last job ended?”
“Maybe I’m just mad all the time,” she said tartly.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know me, Dylan.”
“Don’t I?” I leaned back in my chair, studying her.
She flashed me a look that was half-exasperated, but all sexy. “Do you still have a million female admirers?”
“A million? That’s ridiculous.” I waited until she was taking a sip from her drink, and I said, “There aren’t even a million females in Silver Springs.”
She almost spewed her iced tea across the table, then covered her laugh with her slender fingers. “You’re supposed to pretend to be modest, you know.’
I shrugged. “What you see is what you get with me.”
“That’s a lie. You’re a shifter. The guy with the six-pack abs and the pretty eyes is not all you get.”
Her cheeks flushed as soon as she’d finished her sentence.
“Is that what you see when you look at me?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Not that anyone needed to inflate your ego.”
“That doesn’t inflate my ego, Lily. I wish you’d see a little more than that.” I couldn’t help frowning.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said.
“Yeah, okay. Ready to go?”
She nodded, and as she rose, she bit her lower lip as if she were trying to keep her mouth shut.
I had the feeling this conversation wasn’t going quite the way she wanted it to either, and I wished I knew how to get back to how comfortable things had felt earlier, when we were joking around What could I say?
As we stepped back outside into the sunshine, I asked, “So how come we never dated in high school?”
She laughed out loud.
That question was probably not the right approach to making things comfortable.
“Are you really asking me that?” She turned on the sidewalk to face me, trying to tuck her wayward curls behind her ears, but they just kept springing back into place. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m really asking, and I’d never be kitten you about something so important as our shared trainwreck of a history.”
She raised an eyebrow. Lily was not a fan of puns, and she was especially not a fan of cat-puns, but I couldn’t resist. I loved puns.
“Well, for one you never asked me.” She hooked her hand idly over my forearm as we walked, the two of us swaying close together. “For two, you were always surrounded by girls. You were way out of my league.”
I scoffed. “Please. I thought you were out of my league.”
“What?” She laughed, crinkling her nose as she gazed up at me. “Everyone loves you. And I’m…”
“You’re what?” I asked, and my voice came out fiercer than I expected.
She shrugged. “I’m just…Lily. Everyone always likes you; you’ve never met a stranger. I don’t have that easy lovability that you have. I’m…prickly.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“You were popular in high school. I was bullied,” she reminded me. “Polar opposites.”
“By who?” High school might be long over, but I’d be happy to go have words with some people.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t last long, because you and Blake—” She glanced away, as if it bothered her to remember it.
“High school was a long time ago, Lily.” Even if I was ready to chase down whoever hurt her.
“I know. Never mind… I don’t even know what I was trying to say.” She seemed as if she wanted to give up on this conversation, but I wanted to know how she felt.
We came to a stop in the parking lot of Hot Wheels. She was still toying with her curls as she took a step back toward the open bay door behind her, as if she were about to turn and flee.
“I think you were saying that a string of bad lucks and jerks convinced you that there was something wrong with you.”
Her chin jerked up, her lips parting. Our gazes locked.
Maybe that was too blunt.
“It’s bullshit,” I went on, because I couldn’t stop myself.
“You don’t know me,” she said carefully. “If you did, you might realize…you might be disappointed to find…”
“I might realize that you’re the same girl I’ve always had a thing for, even though we’ve both grown up a little?” I leaned toward her, bracing one arm above her shoulder on the white cinder blocks.
She looked up at me, biting her lip again, but this time it just drew my gaze to the sweet pronounced bow, the adorably rounded lower lip. She