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“When do you get off work?” Gedeon asks boldly. “Because I know a great place not far from here. Maybe we could?—”
Brynn holds up a hand. “Let me stop you right there. It’s not gonna happen.”
Gedeon looks sheepish for the first time in his life. “What won’t happen?”
“This,” she says, gesturing between the two of them. “You and me. I’m not interested.”
“How will you know until you go out on a date with me?”
Brynn rolls her eyes. “I know everything I need to know about fuckboy bodyguards and their accompanying egos.” She looks him up and down with a bored expression on her face. “I’ve dated men like you before—been there, done that, got both the t-shirt and the tattoo, as we’ve discussed—but I’m older and wiser now.”
He arches a brow. “Fuckboys get older and wiser, too. Give me a chance.”
I swear I see a glimmer of a laugh before she irons out her scowl. “Get out of my studio and let me do my job, please and thank you.”
Gedeon opens his mouth to say something else, but I jump between them, literally pushing him out of the door.
“Laila—”
“Zip it,” I hiss, lowering my voice. “Go now and play it cool. I’ll talk you up.”
He beams. “Promise?”
“Pinky swear.”
“Tell her I have three sisters. And I’m great with kids. I babysit my nephews and nieces all the time,” he yammers as I continue to shove him to the door of the building. “Oh, and tell her I can cook. And I’m handy around the house. Talk up tattoos, too, while you’re at it because I’ve got a few too many to cover up. And?—”
“Go, Ged. I’ll handle this.”
With one last roguish smile tossed over his shoulder towards Brynn, he leaves and I can finally shut the door on his face.
When I walk back into the studio, Brynn is tying up her curly auburn hair. “Some guys don’t know when to take a hint, huh?”
“Yeah. Gedeon can come on a little strong, but he didn’t really have a choice. I mean, growing up the only boy with three sisters meant he had to fight for what he wanted.” She narrows her eyes at me, but I plow on. “But don’t get me wrong, he’s gentle. His nieces and nephews love him.”
She sighs. “Does he also rescue kittens from trees and teach illiterate orphans how to read?”
“If I said ‘yes,’ would you agree to go out with him? He’ll never stop annoying me if you don’t.”
Laughing, she heads into the studio. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
“My session or the date?”
“So when she said, ‘See you next time, Laila,’ was there a glint in her eye? Like, did she really mean, ‘I can’t wait to date your bodyguard?’”
I sigh as we come to a stop at the fifth red light in a row. Gedeon has been so busy peppering me for info about Brynn that he’s forgotten where the gas pedal is.
“No glint in her eye, but she did use Morse code to send me a message with her lashes.”
Somehow, the car slows even more as he turns to me. “What did the message say?”
“It said, ‘You are pathetic. Drive the car, please.’”
He turns back to the road, puttering to a stop at another red light. “You’re not funny, you know that? I’m a man in turmoil here. I need your help.”
I sigh. “I talked you up, and she didn’t refuse a date, so I think you’re moving in the right direction. Not literally, of course. Literally speaking, we’re crawling down the road, and we might never get home.”
“Did you tell her about my tattoos?”
