by Megan Bryce
“Too beachy.”
She dropped her sandwich onto the desk to point an irritated finger at him.
“I knew it! You aren’t going to like any color I pick and we will be here for even more weeks.”
Mac picked up the shredded lettuce that had exploded onto his desk on impact.
“I don’t want bright colors on my wall. Remember your room and the towel?”
It wasn’t something she was going to forget any time soon. But…
“I said light teal. And how do you know you’re not going to like it? You might.”
“I’m pretty sure I won’t.”
Gia glared at him, then picked her sandwich back up and dumped half the vegetables onto her paper wrapper.
“There, that’s better. As for you, I’ll get some paint samples and we’ll try it, okay?”
He sighed. “Can you bring a few other colors too?”
She sighed back.
“Yes. I’ll bring a yellow—”
“Too sunny.”
“And a peach—”
“Too…feminine.”
“I’ll bring you a manly peach.”
He gave her a look and she said with a roll of her eyes, “It’ll be more brown. Because everyone knows that men are more brown than women.”
Mac looked interested. “I might like a nice light brown.”
“Ugh. What are you going to feed me while I sit through fifty shades of neutral?”
He looked stumped for a good long minute and Gia kind of let herself enjoy it. He’d been stumping her for weeks now.
He looked down at the subs and slowly said, “A salad…with a side of pizza?”
“I like it. See how easy that was?”
“I’ll try it next time.”
Alright, now he was getting just a little too comfortable with her. She didn’t need his snark.
But she knew one sure-fire way to get him to tighten back up and she pushed out of her chair to go look in the parking lot.
“There’s only three cars down there now. I think it’s time.”
He came to stand beside her, sipping his Coke.
“No. Maybe if they were all together but that right there is three cars more than I’m sure you can avoid.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Why don’t you go kick everyone out? You’re related to the boss.”
“There’s more than just our company in this building.”
“Fine. I’ll go pull the fire alarm—”
He grabbed her arm before she could take more than one step toward the door.
“I don’t think that would go the way you’re imagining. You’d just fill the parking lot up with fire trucks, plus you’d have to spend the night in jail. You’d completely miss your chance to park my car.”
Mac pulled her toward his desk and then around it to push her into his chair, and Gia stiffened in surprise.
“What’s happening here?”
He propped his hip against the desk, not making her feel any less surprised.
“We’ll look at SUVs while we wait.”
She looked up at him, her heart fluttering a little at his closeness.
She sternly told it to stop doing that. She didn’t need to be fluttering around Mac.
He fiddled with the mouse to pull up a bookmarked website and she shook her head.
“Completely unprofessional. I can’t believe you goof around on the internet at work.”
“Only on my breaks.”
“Right. That’s what they all say. What other sites you got bookmarked here?”
“None that would interest you.”
She wrangled the mouse from him. “You would be wrong about that.”
She scanned through his bookmarks and found…cars.
Car remodel and repair.
Dimensions and specifications.
Parts.
Auctions.
“Okay, you were right. There’s not anything here that interests or surprises me. I’m actually kind of glad. Got to be careful checking a guy’s computer.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and she flushed.
She quickly went back to Autotrader, scrolling through the cars he’d saved for her.
“Ugly. So ugly. Oh momma, that’s ugly.”
Mac sighed. Again. And said, “Is this what I’m like?”
Gia gave him a sour look. “No. You’re like, ‘Ohmigod, this is so ugly. How dare you think I’d like this!”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter and he rolled her chair over to commandeer the keyboard.
“Let’s try something different. Let’s find something you do like and not worry about price or fitting in a mirror or anything else. It’ll give me someplace to start.”
“You don’t have any idea what kind of car I’d like? Fun? Sporty? Small?”
He said, “I honestly thought the purple one was it.”
“That big, boxy chunk of eggplant? That’s what you thought I’d like?”
“It was purple. It was small. I thought we had a winner.”
“It was bulbous! Like it’d had an allergic reaction or something.”
He stopped, staring off into space and saying slowly, “It does look like that. I’ll never be able to get that out of my head.”
“Right? I’d have to call it Anaphalaxis—Ana for short… Okay, now it’s growing on me.”
Funny but the nickname really did make her think it less ugly.
She said, “Does your car have a nickname?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, that was said way too quickly for me to believe it.”
“I don’t name my cars. That would be silly.”
She gripped his forearm. “Oh, no. You got to tell me. You got to tell me all their names.”
He flushed, quickly erasing the search parameters on Autotrader and standing back up.
“I don’t name my cars. I’m not that creative.”
“Come on. Tell me.”
He moved around the desk away from her and looked out the window.
“Only two cars, maybe that’s empty enough.”
She chuckled.
“Nice. You’re going to sacrifice your Camaro just so you don’t have to tell me its name?”
“I’d better not be sacrificing my Camaro. And it doesn’t have a name.”
Uh-huh. She’d let him think he’d get away for now.
But she’d break him.
She really wanted to know what an uptight accountant would name his cars.
She pointed to the screen, saying, “I like this one,” and he stuffed his hands in his pockets before coming to look over her shoulder.
“It’s a two-door coupe.”
“It’s cute.”
She looked over her shoulder to find him rubbing his forehead.
He said, “How is two doors going to work for you?”
“You said not to worry about that. I’m just telling you what I like.”
“Keep looking.”
She scrolled some more and found an entirely unsuitable convertible.
“I like this one. It’s red.”
“It’s thirty-five thousand dollars. Of course you like that one.”
“I like the red. Maybe we should look at more red cars.”
He leaned over her and clicked, his chest touching her shoulder briefly, his sweet and spicy scent wafting past her nose.
Her stomach flip-flopped and when he stood back up, she was breathing a little faster.
“Right,” she said. “Red cars. Lots of red cars.”
He leaned over her again.
“Let’s just look at SUVs.” Click. “A car is just not going to work and it’ll frustrate me if that’s all you like.”
She did like cars better, there was no doubt. Small cars that would zip into a tiny parking spot no one else could fit in.
She scrolled through the SUVs quickly.
“No. No. No. Maybe I just don’t like SUVs. I’ve been traumatized by the Escalade.” She laughed. “Speaking of traumatized, here
’s a red bulbous one. I could call it Annie.”
He snorted but Gia sucked in a breath as Annie suddenly looked cute.
“Oh, no! It’s like naming a stray animal and suddenly it’s your pet!”
Mac pulled the mouse from her frozen fingers. He clicked on the car and flipped through the pictures.
“I think it could work for you.”
“No, it can’t!”
“It’s really not that ugly.”
Gia groaned. “Like I can trust your judgment. It’s a car only a mother could love.”
“Well, you did name it.” Mac pulled up the specs on a separate site. “It’s got good cargo space. Let me check common complaints—”
She pushed her chair back sharply and said, “You are moving way too fast for me, buddy. You just slow your roll right on down.”
Gia got as far away from the computer as she could and Mac eyed her.
“I’m not going to make you buy an SUV you hate, Gia.”
“I don’t think you would,” she said. And she really didn’t think that. “It’s just I can tell it’s going to be practical and useful, and I’ll end up thinking maybe it is what I want. And I don’t want to want it because I’m saving myself for a coupe.”
Mac folded his arms and nodded to himself.
“This must be what it’s like when I tell you I just want the tie. You can’t have a coupe.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you telling me you understand you can’t have just one tie?”
“I’m starting to.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it. That was great for Mac but she wasn’t quite ready to accept her bulbous SUV.
Gia glanced out the window, then hopped up and down, completely distracted.
“There’s only one car!”
She clapped her hands together like a seal begging for a treat and when Mac pulled his keys from his pocket, she couldn’t hold back the squeal.
He held them out to her.
“If you hit that car…”
“Let me guess. They’ll never be able to find the body.”
He shook his head.
“I will wear this same tie,” he said, pointing at it, “until the day I die.”
She gasped, then nodded.
“Understood.”
Megan BryceThe Tie’s The Limit
Fifteen
They’d lived through the experience of Gia parking his car.
Mac had had a few moments there where he wasn’t sure his heart could take it since Gia insisted on testing zero to sixty—or as close to it as she could get—in the tight confines of the parking lot.
He might’ve yelled at her a few times but he’d decided post-excitement that it was better than screaming like a little girl.
Or fainting.
But she hadn’t hit the one car that had still been parked there even when he’d peeled his hand from the handle for the final time.
And she’d done just fine parking inside the lines.
Was it nerves? Maybe just the fact that there were other cars around distracted her?
He knew she hadn’t driven in New York, not that that was surprising, and maybe she just needed more practice.
He’d learned his lesson, though. She wouldn’t be practicing with his car.
He tried not to think about it anymore as he waited for both her and their pizza to show up.
They’d decided to wait until Friday night because Gia had been sure it would take all evening to go through the paint samples.
She could have been saying it just to see the color drain from his face.
But he had a feeling she’d really meant it.
The pizza arrived first and he kept it tightly closed to keep it hot while he fixed the salad.
He normally didn’t cook for himself but he liked the idea of cooking for someone else.
Someone else who might be impressed that he’d gone out and bought a chopping board during his lunch break.
It was brown, and he could imagine what Gia would think about that even if wooden chopping boards really didn’t come in any other color.
He couldn’t wait for her to open his fridge.
Maybe it wasn’t completely stocked but it was far from empty now. He’d even bought a bottle of Shiraz that was now chilling.
It almost felt like a date, if he was being honest with himself.
“Not a date,” he said out loud to the tomato he was trying to slice. “Just salad, pizza, wine… It sounds like a date.”
The effort alone might be date-worthy.
He’d bought three kinds of salad dressing because he didn’t know what she would like.
He’d hand-washed the lettuce.
He was slicing tomatoes and even got an avocado.
And she was coming over with paint samples. Like they were friends, doing each other a favor because…
They were friends?
But last night, when she’d started the Camaro and that rumble had sprung to life beneath them, something else had sprung to life.
She’d moaned, “Ohh yeahhh,” and gripped the steering wheel like nothing would ever take it from her.
She’d wriggled in her seat.
More than once.
So maybe it wasn’t so farfetched that tonight felt like a date.
But when Mac opened the door to her, Gia was standing on the other side with a huge shopping bag filled with brightly colored squares, and the excitement that had been sitting in his stomach turned to dread.
“That’s a lot of paint samples,” he said, taking the bag from her.
“Yes. I might have overdone it.”
Mac choked. “And you recognize it? That’s so… I’m so proud of you.”
“Ha ha. Ooh,” she said, her attention snagged by his new chopping board. “You’re making a salad?”
He nodded. “I don’t know why. I could have just bought one…”
“Does that mean you actually have something in your fridge?”
Gia opened the fridge door like she was unwrapping a Christmas present and squealed.
“You went shopping!”
He looked over her shoulder at the bread and turkey, mayonnaise and mustard. And he’d have extra lettuce and tomato. For some reason, he’d thought that bringing in his own sandwich for lunch sounded like a good idea.
Gia said, “You got milk! That’s a perishable—now I’m so proud.”
She wiped away a fake tear and Mac tried not to laugh. Tried to pretend he wasn’t biting his tongue to keep from grinning at her.
He stepped away from her and the milk and went back to slicing his tomato.
“Why don’t you pick out a dressing for the salad?”
“Oh my god, options? It’s like I don’t even know you.”
She handed him the bottle of ranch and he said, “Wine? Milk? I didn’t get any soda, sorry.”
“Couldn’t do it, huh?”
He shook his head. “Very unhealthy.”
She placed the wine bottle on the counter next to him and he told himself quickly that it wasn’t a date.
Just because he associated wine with dating didn’t mean that she did.
Gia leaned back against the counter, watching him mix the dressing into the salad and saying, “But wine’s okay?”
“It’s red wine. Polyphenols. Resveratrol.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve never had wine with pizza before, only beer.”
“I haven’t either but it’s red meat. Pepperoni, sausage, olives, onions. It should pair well. I think.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You put vegetables on my pizza? We’re already having a salad.”
He found the corkscrew and handed it to her.
He said, “I did it solely to torture you. And also to make up for the pepperoni and sausage.”
“Well, mission accomplished. Both of them.”
She concentrated on twisting the bottle opener onto the cork and Mac got out his white plates.
When they were plated and seated on his w
hite barstools, Gia lifted her glass to him.
“Thank you for dinner. And for getting rid of the tie before I got here.”
He clinked their glasses softly, self-consciously patting his unbuttoned shirt collar.
“You’re welcome. For both.”
Gia chuckled, going straight for her pizza, and when she made a surprised yet appreciative noise, Mac said, “Let me guess. It’s not New York but it’s not bad.”
She laughed.
“It is not New York. But it is not bad.”
She sipped at her wine.
“And I want you to remember that when I’m showing you not-quite-brown paint samples.”
He glanced at the large—very large—bag behind them and said, “How did you even get out of the store with that many?”
“They’re free. You’re supposed to take them, so I took one of each.”
Gia hopped off her stool to grab a handful of samples. Some were square, some rectangular. Some had one single large color, some had shades and gradients of what Mac had to assume was the same color.
She said, “I tried to keep the color families together—yellow with yellow, etc—but by the end there I was just shoving them in the bag. We’ll have to sort them.”
Mac raised his eyebrows at her as he took a large bite of salad.
And apparently she understood the gesture because she said, “Yes. We.”
He chuckled.
He liked to think it was a very disagreeable sound.
Gia said, “It’ll help us narrow down what colors you like the best.”
“You mean color, not colors.”
“I mean colors. Kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom. We don’t have to do the same color in every room.”
“Yes. Yes, we do. I do not want to live in a rainbow.”
“Oh, I wanna live in a rainbow! Maybe I should repaint my walls.”
“Just take the samples. Leave me the brown ones and you won’t even have to buy paint.”
Her eyes widened like she thought he was serious, like she thought it was the best idea she’d ever heard, and Mac groaned.
“I was joking. Don’t do it.”
“I am! I’m going to make a rainbow out of paint samples!”
See, this was why he didn’t joke around. You accidentally unleashed a crime of nature and no one could stop it.
“Come finish your dinner and we’ll sort the samples, okay?”
She hopped back up, grinning at him.
“Okay, but you keep the wine away from them. I don’t want any accidents on my project because it will be amazing. You’ll have to come see my rainbow when it’s done.”
