Page 56 of Only After We Met

“Tell me again. Please. Pretty please.”

“I wanted to see you, Ginger.”

“That’s so sweet.” I cut him off.

He rolled his eyes, and I grinned.

“So you used to be captain of the football team.”

“That matters now because…?”

“Because it’s so hard to believe after getting to know you. Idon’t know. The way you move. The way you act. Your tough-guy attitude.”

“I told you, it was a phase.”

“I still think it means something.”

“You’re going to torture me forever, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. That’s the plan,” I admitted, laughing. “By the way, you never did tell me what happened with the girl you were dating when you were prom king.”

“We broke up,” he said, looking away.

“Obviously. I meant why…”

I stopped talking when the train rocked, and Rhys grabbed my thigh and smiled, looking down at the little pineapples on my shoes.

“That’s awful summery for London.”

“I like contrasts,” I said.

“As long as you can control them…”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t we have to get off here?”

“Shit! Yes!” I jumped up, and Rhys grabbed my suitcase from the overhead compartment before running for the doors, which were about to close. Once out, we looked at each other, grinning, as the train took off.

“Is your house close to here?”

“More or less. Let’s take a walk.”

We walked away from Victoria Station and into the chill wind of the city. Rhys looked around.

“I could sit and wait for you in one of these cafés.”

“Wait for me?” I narrowed my eyes.

“While you have lunch with your family.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No, of course not. You’re coming with me. You can eat with us. My mother will be pleased to meet you, and there will be plenty of food.”

Rhys stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as the people kept walking past. I could sense the tension in his shoulders, the doubt in his eyes.

“Does your mother know I exist?”

“Yeah. My sister blurted it out.”