Gia stood on the curb, her jacket clutched in one hand at her side. A beam of sunshine had broken through the clouds and she lifted her face to it, her closed eyes and upturned mouth evidence that she was relishing in the spill of warmth on her cheeks. Ricky swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. Man, she was beautiful. That hair, those long legs, the way her blue sweater hugged her body. It all wreaked havoc with his thoughts. She really shouldn't be allowed out of the house in anything but a potato sack. Then again, a potato sack would be a lot easier to remove than all the layers she usually wore.
Scratch that.
"Dude," he reprimanded himself as he pulled his truck up next to where she stood and hit the unlock button on his door panel. "Get a grip." She just stood there, face still tilted up, so he rolled down the passenger window. "Hey there, pretty lady. Want some candy?"
Her lips twitched, but she didn't look at him. "I don't have a sweet tooth."
They both knew that was a lie. "I have a collection of cute puppy pictures you might want to see."
"Nope. I'm a cat girl." They both knew that was a lie, too. Phoebe was the only Gustafson girl who actually liked cats, but she was allergic to them, so she pined for them from afar.
"I see. Well, I also happen to have a stash of cat memes on my phone. Wanna see them?" He held his phone between thumb and forefinger and swung it back and forth in the window.
Gia finally looked at him—finally—and Ricky could have sworn he felt the heat of the sun radiating off her skin when she did. "You are a determined and desperate man, sir." She stepped to the edge of the curb and leaned down to peer in the window at him. "Do you cook?"
"My prison tattoo says 'Chef' so I'd say that's a yes." He was grinning like a lovesick baboon, but he didn't care. "I make a killer pot of spaghetti and meatballs," he added.
"Ah. The reason you went to prison, I presume? Your killer spaghetti?"
"Or my to-die-for quesadillas."
"Or maybe you just got caught luring helpless women into your truck with your offer of candy and baby animal porn."
Ricky laughed and shook his head. "Nope. Not possible. It hasn't worked even once."
Gia narrowed her gaze at him as though considering his offer. "Spaghetti and meatballs?"
"And bread sticks and éclairs." When she still didn't look sold, he added his coup de grâce. "I will not be serving salad or anything else in the vegetable family tonight."
Gia yanked open the door and slid into the seat. "You just got yourself a dinner date, mister." She slammed the door behind her and turned to face him.
They sat in silence for few moments, her breathing quick and shallow, his held tightly in his chest, and then she burst out laughing. "You are such a perv, Rickaroni."
He shrugged. "Yeah, well, it worked, didn't it?" He hit the lock button and rolled up her window from his door panel, then wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. "Now I'm going to kidnap you and take you back to my dark lair—"
Gia reached over and shoved him in the shoulder. "Stop it. You're just creeping me out now. Besides, I get enough of that stuff at work already."
Ricky swayed with the push and he chuckled, but he hadn't missed the odd look that crossed her features. Her words sunk in and he stilled, but he didn't look at her. Instead, he leaned forward and turned the key in the ignition. As he pulled away from the curb, he asked, "What do you mean, you get that stuff at work? Is there a customer bugging you?" Please tell me it's not Barista Boy, please tell me—no wait. Please tell me it IS Barista Boy so I have an excuse to mess up his pretty face... Good grief.
But one glance over at her gave him all the answer he needed. "It's Barista Boy, isn't it?"
Gia's head snapped around and she let out a sound that was halfway between a giggle and a snort. "Barista Boy?"
"Yeah, your Italian coffee god." He didn't mean for it to come out so sarcastically.
Gia sat slumped in her seat, her jacket in a heap on her lap, but he knew her too well not to notice the tension tightening her neck and shoulders. And the fact that she stared straight out the front windshield now only made him more wary of her response. "First of all, he's not mine at all, Italian coffee god, barista boy, or whatever else you want to call him. He is, though, the new kid in town—remember what that feels like?" She shot him a hard glare, but as soon as he caught her eye, she lifted her chin and looked straight ahead again. "He is also my friend, and he is my co-worker."
"Sorry," Ricky interjected, even though he wasn't. Her adamant reaction alone told him he had good cause to be worried, but the fact that she was claiming him as a friend after knowing him less than a week bugged him to no end. "I just wanted to know if you were being bothered by someone, okay? You're the one who said you were getting hassled at work."
"No," she dipped her head dramatically. "I did not say I was getting hassled at work. I said I was getting... stuff... at work."
Ricky knew he should just drop it, that asking for clarification was tantamount to jumping into the middle of a cactus patch, but he couldn't bite the words back fast enough. "What kind of stuff?" He emphasized the word the same way she had. "Perv stuff? Teasing? Flirting? I know the guy makes you coffee—" Dang it. Shut up, man.
For the most part, he kept his eyes on the road, but a few sideways glances told him she was shutting him out. Arms now crossed, jaws clenched, chin up.
"Fine. Never mind," he finally said when she didn't offer an explanation. "But if I catch that guy harassing you, he's going to have to answer to me."
"Seriously?" Gia asked, swiveling around in her seat to glare at him. She said that word a lot these days, he'd noticed, like she couldn't quite believe what other people around her were thinking and saying. It bugged him.
"Yeah, seriously," he grouched.
"Okay. How about this," she began, her tone laced with venom and false cheer, and Ricky knew his plans for the evening were on the verge of imploding right before his eyes.
He spoke first. "Gia, please. I don't want to fight with you. This is about us making up, okay? Forget I said anything. We were having a good time a minute ago."
"Yeah, until you ruined it by pulling the jealous boyfriend card. Again. Dude. I'm not your girlfriend." She accentuated each word as though he were thick in the head. But then she faltered a little, and Ricky's heart twitched with hope, hope that she didn't like the sound of that any more than he did. "It would never work, not in a million years," she continued, her words falling from her lips like anvils. Nope. No hope there. Gia pressed back into the corner of her seat and up against the door, like she was trying to get as far away from him as possible. "We're not even friends with benefits."
Ricky blinked long and slow as he processed what she was saying, and then, because he wanted to take a jab at her the way she was at him, he let the words fly. "Whoa. You mean that was an option? You been holding out on me, woman."
The air between them went deathly still, like they'd both been struck and were holding their breath to determine how much pain had actually been inflicted.
"Stop the truck."
"No."
"Stop the truck!" she cried out, the words tearing from her throat in a voice Ricky had never heard before. When she began fumbling for the handle, he realized she was dead serious. Terrified she might actually launch herself out into the street, he pulled over to the curb.
Before she could untangle herself from her seatbelt, he grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? That was totally out of line." He tugged a little in a futile attempt to pull her toward him. This was not happening. Not happening.
"You think?" She wouldn't look at him, instead, she stared at his fingers wrapped around her wrist. "Let go of me. Now."
"Gia, please. Please." He was begging now but he didn't care. "Don't go like this. I have dinner. We can—"
"Let go of me or I will scream." She lifted her eyes to his and he released her arm as though he'd been burned, even though what he saw in her face turned his blood to ice. Over. It was over. The fight. The night. Maybe even the friendship. Definitely his lovesick dreams for a happily ever after between them. She pushed open her door and swiveled in her seat to get out.
"Let me at least drive you home," he murmured. It was almost five miles across town to her place. "Please." He was still begging.
"I'll find my own ride. And I'm not going home." With that, she stepped out onto the sidewalk, slammed the truck door much harder than necessary, and turned on her heels to go back the way they'd come.
Ricky knew where she was going. And he was pretty sure he also knew who would be giving her that ride. Juliette and Vic were on their honeymoon, Phoebe and Trevor were always busy on Friday nights, and Gia would only call Renata if she was desperate.
Ricky couldn't ever remember Gia being desperate. He stared at her back in his rear view mirror as she walked away, her long strides eating up the sidewalk under her. Sure enough, she pulled out her cell phone, dialed, and held it to her ear. A moment later, she glanced back over her shoulder at him, and even though he didn't think she could see him watching her, he hated that she witnessed him just sitting there.
But he couldn't move. He wouldn't just leave her alone on the sidewalk. Even if he was angry and jealous and gutted, he had to make sure she was going to be okay, no matter where she was heading. Before he could talk himself out of it, he put the truck in gear, made an illegal U-turn across the double yellow lines and drove after her. By the time he was parallel to her, she'd put her phone away. "Can I give you a ride to Ricardo's?" he asked, even though the words felt like broken glass on the way out.
"No thanks. I've got a ride and I'm not going to Ricardo's."
Ricky bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood. "I'm not going to leave you out here by yourself, Gia. Please get in. I'll take you wherever you want to go."
She stopped, braced both feet wide on the pavement, and said, "Go home, Ricky."
He sat stone still, not even feeling the vibration of the idling truck under him. He might not have the will or strength to say anything else, but he wouldn't drive away until he knew she was safe. It wasn't a bad part of town, per se, but it wasn't a very busy street, either. If anything were to happen to her out here, there would be no one around to help.
A few moments passed, and then she turned and started back down the sidewalk. He waited until she was several yards ahead of him and then let his foot off the brake just enough to creep along behind her, close enough that he could jump out and intercede if he needed to, but far enough away that she wouldn't think he wanted to talk.
At the end of the block, she waited for the light to change, and then crossed the street and went inside the little taco shop on the corner. Ricky pulled into the parking lot and backed into a spot so he could keep an eye on her through the plate glass windows. He knew she'd accuse him of spying on her or stalking her, or of 'pulling the jealous boyfriend card' but he hoped after she calmed down a little that she might see he was really pulling the 'true friend' card now. He would leave as soon as he knew she wasn't going to be walking the five or six blocks back to Ricardo's alone.
No matter who showed up to give her a ride.