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her model-thin hips, eyes flashing. She met Ivy’s gaze, tossed her perfectly coiffed, long, blond hair in a gesture that screamed “I have no clue why he’s with you when he could have all of this” and stomped off.
    “She looks pissed. Or looked. She’s gone now.”
    “Good.” He let his hand drop and reached around her to open the car door. “Your chariot awaits.”
    “Valentino’s?” she asked, still shaking a bit from the aftereffects of their kiss as she climbed in. “I’m dying for a piece of meat-lovers pie. Or three.”
    She cringed, instantly regretting mentioning her appetite—another knee-jerk reaction from her way overweight days, when talk of food had been all but verboten—but Cade didn’t seem to notice. He leaned on the open door. “Sasha’s bound to be there. Sure you’re up for that?”
    After that kiss, she wasn’t sure of anything, especially her ability to be within five feet of Cade without mauling him like a sex-starved grizzly. But at least at Valentino’s they’d be surrounded by a crowd. And dinner would put off the awkwardness when he dropped her off at the end of the night.
    “I’m game as long as you are.”
    “Great.” He bent to pick up her baseball cap, brushed it off and handed it to her. “I’m starving.”
    Two hours, one beer and more pieces of pizza than she wanted to admit later, Ivy yawned, unable to delay the inevitable any longer. She tapped Cade, who was sitting next to her, on the shoulder. “Can we leave soon? I’ve got to be at the nursery at the butt crack of dawn, and it’s way past my bedtime.”
    Plus, she’d had about as much of Sasha and her high-pitched, fake laugh as she could take. Cade’s ex had kept her distance, but that annoying laugh traveled across the room like a bullet to the brain.
    And then there were the well-meaning but double-edged compliments from classmates she hadn’t seen since graduation.
    “Oh, my God, Ivy, is that you?”
    “What happened to you?”
    “You’re so much thinner.”
    And her personal favorite: “Are you sick?” Like that was the only conceivable way Jabba the Mutt could drop a few pounds.
    Cade pulled out his wallet. “No problem. I’m ready to head out, too.”
    He threw a handful of bills on the table and stood. “This ought to cover my share.”
    Trey snatched it up. “If it doesn’t, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
    “Thanks for everything,” Cade said to Ivy once they’d gotten into his SUV. “I owe you.”
    “We’re even, remember?” She ran a finger along the brim of the ball cap, now laying in her lap. “The dare.”
    “Right. The dare.” He turned onto the narrow road that circled Leffert’s Pond and led to Holly and Nick’s place. “Anyway, you were great tonight.”
    Ivy stared silently out the window, her heart knocking against her ribs. He had no idea how great tonight could be, if only she could work up the nerve. After a few minutes, she turned to Cade, his profile handsome even in the eerie half light of the car’s dashboard. She wished she had her Nikon so she could capture him. “So, that kiss...”
    “Yeah, that was something.” He shot her a quick, embarrassed smile and her heart skittered even faster. “I bet I won’t be hearing from Sasha again after that performance.”
    Screech.
Just like that, her heart skidded to a stop, her hopes dashed.
    Performance? Who did he think was performing? Her? Him? Both of them?
    She scrunched up the baseball cap in her hands. “That’s not the word I’d use to describe it.”
    “Why not?”
    “For your information, Mr. I’m-Too-Sexy-For-My-Turnouts Hardesty, I was not ‘performing.’” She made air quotes around the last word. “And neither were you, if the hard-on jabbing against me was anything to go by.”
    He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a guy. It’s a natural reaction when a woman plasters herself against you and kisses you like a porn star.”
    “A woman?” She leaned against the car door,