the top of his head on the chance that his hair was sticking up after removing his knit cap.
“A bridesmaid. At a prewedding photo shoot.” Her gaze flicked down his body. Max looked down. He’d changed his shirt for a sweater and had removed his contacts—he really needed to get his prescription checked—and had put on glasses.
Carly lifted her gaze again, and the corner of her mouth curled up in a strange little smile.
What the hell? Did he look weird? Did he have pizza sauce on his face? “I’m sorry—is something wrong?”
“Nope.” She pressed her lips together, caught her ponytail, and flicked it over her shoulder.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
“Like what? I’m not even looking at you. Everything is fabulous. I found my dog, I saved the day for Bubbles—excuse me, Hazel—and, yes, I’ve had a very productive day. Thank you for asking.”
“That’s great,” he said, his gaze locked on her. “I didn’t know I’d asked.”
“Well,” she said, her gaze locked on him, too, “you looked like you were about to.”
There seemed to be some weird energy flowing around them that Max couldn’t quite decipher. But before he could, she said, “I’m just going to, ah . . . go get my dog.” She pointed to the interior of the house.
“Right,” he said and with a bend of his head, indicated she should come in.
Carly walked into his living room where Hazel had Baxter pinned to the floor by his neck. Carly didn’t seem to notice. She shoved her hands into her hoodie and her gaze flicked quickly over him again. “You have a cute house. I really didn’t notice the first time. I like the Spanish style. You don’t see so many of them around town anymore. You know . . . the tech millionaires.” She glanced away from him.
The tech millionaires. Was that supposed to mean something? Had he missed some innuendo, some social cue, maybe even part of a conversation? Was he crazy, or had the mood done a definite shift into a weird, dithery space? She had those blue eyes that sort of pulled you in, and maybe he’d been pulled in for a moment too long and had shot past something vital. “I don’t . . . not following,” he said.
“You know . . . buying all the houses and turning them into mansions.” Carly pushed a bit of hair behind her ear. Only there wasn’t any hair to push back, and he wasn’t certain she even realized it. What had happened? Earlier, she’d been ready to bust his balls for having failed to have Baxter’s chip scanned. And now she seemed almost nervous. It made him feel uneasy, too, and they stood there for a very awkward moment, their gazes locked again, the air around them bubbling hot like dry ice in warm water. But Max didn’t like the awkward standoff, and in an effort to end it, to sound completely unaffected by the strange vibe, he said breezily, “Oh, hey, looks like you lost the sleeves.”
She looked down at one of her sleeves. Then at him. “What?”
“The, ah . . . the costume you were wearing with the sleeves,” he said, gesturing to his own arm. “What sort of costume was it, anyway?”
Carly’s mouth dropped open. And then closed. Well, then. If he wanted to dissipate the strange little spell between them, he’d done it, and but good. She cocked her weight on one hip in a manner that had irked female written all over it and Max didn’t know how, or what, but he realized he’d said something horribly, terribly wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said with false airiness. “Did you say costume?”
“I mean . . . wasn’t it?”
She folded her arms. “For your information, I was wearing an original Victor Allen.”
He had no idea who or what that was, but he could plainly see he’d tripped a wire and blown up a mine. “Oh. I didn’t know—”
“You’d pay thousands for that ensemble in New York or Los Angeles,” she said, clearly gathering some steam.
An inadvertent chuckle of disbelief escaped him. “Why?”
She gasped. Her eyes rounded.
“Okay,” Max said, and held up his hand. “I sort of live under a rock—”
“Yes, you do!” She made a sound like a shout and gasp of air at once. “I don’t even know where to begin! I mean, you obviously have never heard of Victor Allen—”
“True—”
“But he just happens to be one of the nation’s most exciting young fashion designers and he’s