“What day is it?” he asked.
“Tuesday.”
“Who set us up?”
“Lottie.”
He held three fingers up to my face. “How many fingers do you see?”
“Three, Mag, stop it. I’m okay. I just…”
I didn’t finish.
“What?” he asked.
“Just…”
I again didn’t finish.
“What, Evan?”
God, really, was he actually that handsome?
And right there, hovering over me, looking concerned, which made him even more handsome?
“Evan?” he called.
“Your eyelashes are very curly,” I whispered.
That was when he did it.
His gaze changed, it was an amazing change I felt in amazing places, it shifted to my mouth, and I felt that too, it was also amazing, and last, he murmured, “Baby.”
“I’m not your baby,” I breathed.
His gaze shifted back to my eyes, and he rumbled, all sexy, hot and sweet, “Oh yeah, you are.”
My toes curled.
“Danny—”
“Mag.”
“Mag, I—”
My phone buzzed with a text.
He looked to the kitchen counter, to me, put the ice back on and ordered, “Hold that.”
I did as told, and he straightened and took the single step it took him with his long-ass legs to get to the counter.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
I kept the ice where it should be but tipped my head to look at him only to see him reading my screen.
Yes.
Reading my screen.
“What are you doing?”
His eyes dropped down to me. “Who you gonna meet at Storage and Such on East Colfax at eleven fuckin’ thirty, Evan?”
Uh-oh.
“Why you gonna meet someone at Storage and Such on East fuckin’ Colfax at eleven fuckin’ thirty?” he continued.
I pushed up and reached out a hand. “Give me my phone.”
“Answer me,” he demanded testily.
I twisted in the couch to put my feet on the floor, saying, “I’ve known you all of ten minutes. You can’t read my texts and it’s none of your business who I meet where.”
“You got a situation?” he asked.
I didn’t.
My brother obviously did.
“No,” I semi-lied.
“You keep bad company?” he asked.
I didn’t.
But my brother totally did.
“No,” I did not lie, though I had a feeling, if I went to Storage and Such on East Colfax, I would be.
My phone chimed again with another text and his eyes went direct to it.
Now…
Really.
I stood, pulling the ice off my head and snapping, “Danny!”
He looked to me and growled, “It says meet outside unit six and come alone.”
I slowly closed my eyes and let my head fall back.
“Evan.”
He was still growling.
I said nothing.
Come alone.
Mick, what mess are you in now? I thought.
“Evie,” Mag clipped.
I opened my eyes and righted my head.
“There’s a favor I need to do for my brother.”
“At eleven thirty on East Colfax?”
I tipped my head to the side and shrugged, but that was a sham seeing as a chill was racing up my spine.
“Lie down. Ice on,” he bit out.
“Danny—”
“Lie your ass down and get that ice back to that bump, Evie, then we’ll talk.”
“We won’t talk, you’ll just go. Obviously, the date’s off for this evening. We’ll reschedule.”
Or we would not.
“Mac says you’re a genius,” he announced, apropos of nothing.
I blinked and asked, “What?”
“Lottie. She says you’re a genius.”
Wow.
That was nice.
“She says you told her that you took apart a radio, and put it back together,” he carried on. “When you were six.”
I did do that.
My mother thought I was a freak.
My father bought every broken radio he could find at thrift shops, brought them home, made me fix them, then sold them at triple what he bought them for.
I didn’t, incidentally, see a dime of those earnings.
I was six, but, you know, allowance.
Maybe?
Mag continued talking.
“So, genius, look at my face and tell me if I’m leaving.”
I looked at his face.
I then became suddenly exhausted as the weight of my visit with my brother and all that might mean settled hard on my shoulders, and I decided to stretch out on my couch and put the ice on my head.
“Good call,” he muttered.
One could say I was correct in my concerns about Daniel Magnusson.
I didn’t know if he was toxic.
But he was a bossy damned alpha.
And meddling.
“I don’t like you,” I told the ceiling.
“You like my eyelashes,” he said as I heard him settle in my armchair.
I made no reply.
“Talk to me,” he demanded.
I sighed.
Then I stated, “I think my brother is in a bit of a bind.”
“And this requires you to go to Storage and Such in the dead of night?”
Hmm.
The crack to my head was wearing off (though the humiliation lingered), and as it was, I was belatedly sensing this might be a boon.
I got the impression he liked me.
Even if I was a freak and a geek.
Even if I got snippy about global warming (as one should).
Even if I cracked my head on the counter and landed on my ass in my kitchen.
Even if I was not at one with some guy I barely knew helping himself to my texts.
But first date already ruined, it would be annihilated if he knew about my family.