“Not good enough.”
“What?”
“Why do you like me?” he says. “I can list ten things I like about you, but can you do the same for me?” He smiles mysteriously. “And not anything about me buying you food.”
“But I like the food,” I admit lamely.
“I know. That’s how I keep you around. All I have to do is feed you, and you keep coming back,” he laughs.
I place my hand over my mouth to cover my giggle. “You’re mean sometimes.”
“Am I?” He turns into a parking lot with five fast-food places and a supermarket beside it. “Would someone so mean come to Central to buy the girl he likes pizza?”
True to Conner’s words, there it is. A fast-food pizza place right before my eyes.
Conner’s phone vibrates, and he glances at it before placing it on the cup tray and unbuckling his seat belt. “It’s ready. Are you coming?”
“Coming?” I say.
“Yeah.”
I nod, poke the buckle, step out of the car and hop up onto the footpath. Conner opens the door and gestures for me to enter. It’s warm inside, and I feel my pores opening. The beady sweat slips down my forehead.
Conner comes up behind me, and I suck in a breath as his arms wrap around me and he rests his chin on my head. My hands go over his hands, and I close my eyes to inhale the smell of meat and cooked dough.
“Smells good, huh?”
I smile and nod.
He releases his hold on me, yet his hand lingers on mine, lacing between my fingers. My face is burning, but it’s not from the heat inside the pizza place this time.
“Hey, man,” Conner says to the cashier. “I’m here to pick up order two-five-three-nine for Conner.”
The man goes to the trolley behind him and grabs three pizzas stacked on top of each other, something wrapped in silver foil, and a small box. Conner holds all of it, balancing them on top of one another.
“Grab the two-litre drink from the fridge there,” the cashier says and points to the refrigerator.
“Noya, my hands are a little full. Could you get the drink, please?”
“Which one?”
“Orange,” he answers.
I grimace, go to the fridge, grab the lemon drink I notice him order whenever we go through McDonald’s drive-thru, and then open the door for him.
“Noya, the keys are in my pocket. Can you grab them and open the door?”
I reach in and go to grab them when Conner shifts slightly away. My hand moves away from whatever I had reached for, and I grab the keys, fish them out, and unlock the door. As soon as we enter the car and close the doors, the smell of the pizza fills the car, and my mouth salivates.
I’ve never had pizza before.
“So…” Conner shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I got Meat Lovers, vegetarian, and pepperoni. I thought about cheese instead of vegetarian, but pepperoni is like cheese…if you take the pepperoni off. So, which one do you want?”
“I’d like the vegetarian one,” I answer.
Conner glances at the pizzas and then at me. “Look, I’m going to come right and say it. When you reached for my keys, you grabbed something else. Right now, the vegetarian pizza is the only thing stopping it from rising further.” He leans toward me with the two other pizzas. “Pepperoni or Meat Lovers?”
“Um…” I glance at the vegetarian pizza on his lap, and my cheeks flush. Looking away, I mumble, “Pepperoni, please.”