Page 523 of Bad Prince
I stare at him.
He does not flinch.
“Excuse me?”
“One upgrade package,” he says, gesturing vaguely to himself. “Bigger arms. Faster forty. Better truck capacity. I can be your new hashtag, Texas.”
I almost laugh.
That’s how annoying he is.
He says things so stupid they circle all the way back around to nearly funny.
“I would rather date a dishwasher.”
He puts a hand over his heart.
“Cold.”
“You smell like wet shoulder pads and ego.”
“That sounds made up.”
“It should.”
I glance pointedly at his chest. “And yet.”
He looks down at himself, then back at me.
“I smell elite.”
“You smell like if protein powder became sentient and got a DUI.”
That actually gets him.
He throws his head back and laughs, loud enough that the baseball player across the room looks over.
It is, unfortunately, a good laugh.
Warm.
Uncontained.
Annoyingly real.
I hate that too.
He looks back at me with something brighter in his eyes now.
“There she is.”
I narrow mine.
“Do not ‘there she is’ me.”
“You’ve been doing that fake pageant-smile thing all morning.”
The words land harder than I want them to.
