Not in the Script (47 page)

Then he turns and easily pulls the overladen cart over the bump, onto the smooth cement of the aisle. The stall door screeches as he rolls it shut.

“I still have to put pellets in there,” I start.

“I'll get it.”

I stare at him, unwilling to believe he'd volunteer to take on even a tiny portion of my workload without wanting something in return. “Well, you just go zero to sixty in about five seconds, don't you?”

He flashes me a wolfish smile, the one that makes him seem half-dangerous, half-sexy. But now I know what really lurks beneath all those muscles and cowboy swagger, and his smile is no longer so attractive.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asks, tipping the rim of his cowboy hat back far enough that I can see into his intense brown eyes. He's … irritated.

Good.

I narrow my own eyes and match his look. “The silent treatment, to mockery, to doing me favors,” I say, ticking them off on my fingers. “Before you turned on the roller coaster, you could have at least warned me to keep my hands and feet in the car at all times.”

He huffs. “Can't a guy do a girl a favor?”

“No.” I laugh, and not in a pretty way. “Not you, anyway.”

Dang. I had wanted to be aloof. Unaffected. I'm screwing it up.

He shrugs, totally unbothered by my visceral response. “Fine then. Do it yourself,” he says. But he doesn't move out of my way or open the stall door either. Instead, his eyes sweep over
my now-dirty polo shirt, down my legs, and then back up again before he smirks. “What's with the getup?”

I grit my teeth and check out my outfit. I'm in my Serenity Ranch polo, as required, along with my jean shorts, but I have lime-green leggings underneath, and my cowboy boots don't match any of my clothes—they're powder blue. It's like my outfit is a mullet—business on the top, party on the bottom.

“Can't wear plain old shorts in a saddle, you know that,” I say, like he's being stupid. “It pinches.”

“Right. And regular jeans would just be too …”

“Boring?” I say, throwing his words back at him.

“Uh-huh, and being a freak show—”

My anger explodes. “What do you want, Landon? Hurting me last year wasn't enough and now you've gotta waltz in here and insult me?”

Crap. I wasn't planning to admit how much he hurt me. I'm ruining all of this. Bailey's going to laugh me out of our cabin later.

In response, he crosses his arms and waits as if he was the one to ask the question and he's expecting an answer, but I have nothing else to say. And then he just shrugs and walks away, whistling an all-too-familiar tune.

Oh say can you seeeeeeee.

Ugh.

Read on for a glimpse at another romance filled with gelato, sightseeing, and off-limits amore!

 

 

There's every color of gelato you can imagine. All the little flavor signs are in Italian, but I do recognize some of the words, like “nutella” and “amaretto.” Each tub of gelato is its own work of art—a swirly mound drizzled with glistening sauce or sprinkled with nuts, chocolate bits, or fruit.

The sweaty crowd impatiently nudges me to move along, and a bored server waits for me to order. Feeling the pressure to make a fast decision, I point to the one called
stracciatella
because it looks the most like cookies and cream, then pick an unlabeled green one, hoping that it's mint and not something weird like pistachio.

As I walk out to find a place to sit, a family of three-speaking what I'm pretty sure is French—abandons their table, so I slip into one of the little chairs before anyone else claims it. I set my cup on the table and take aim with my camera, zooming in nice and close with a large aperture so everything
but my focal point will be blurred together.
Snap.
My first photograph in Italy.

“Nice camera.”

Startled, I glance up as a scruffy-faced guy about my age pulls out a chair across the table from me.

“Thanks.”

“Mind if I sit here?”

I give a slight shake of my head, looking him up and down quickly. Aside from the insane amount of curly, dark hair on the top of his head, he sort of reminds me of Morgan's older brother. Tall, same toned build, super-light-brown eyes. The crush that crushed me.

He takes a bite of his gelato. “I'd never be able to use one of those big cameras. Too many buttons.”

I can't help but smile. I haven't even been in Italy a whole day, but I'm already relieved to hear English—
my
English. But … “How did you know I speak English?”

A dimple appears when he smirks and points at me with his little plastic spatula-like spoon. “Because you're taking pictures of your food, which means not only that you speak English, but you're also American. Probably a blogger.”

I click the lens cap back on and let the camera rest safely on my lap. “Well, of course now you know I'm American because you can hear that I don't have an accent. And I'm not a blogger.”

I tried blogging last year, mostly to post some of the photos I was proud of, but I never got any followers, so I took the blog down. I keep my special photos to myself now.

“Oh, you have an accent.” He takes another bite and leans back in his chair. “It's
American.
And northern, by the sound of it.” He points at me with his spoon again. “Gelato's melting.”

I look at my cup and gasp when I see how much is being wasted, dripping all down the side and making a puddle on the table. I quickly scrape the spoon along the edge before lifting it to my mouth.

My eyes close automatically, helping to block out all other senses but taste. And the green one is mint, not pistachio, thankfully. It's the softest, creamiest, most amazing flavor I've ever experienced. My tongue is cool, not only because the gelato is cold, but because of the mint itself. It floods my whole mouth then disappears down my throat. I need more.

I dip my spoon into the other flavor. “Ohhhh, wow this is good.” I sigh.

“First timer?”

I swallow and nod, looking back at my table companion. “It's amazing.”

“So, you're not a blogger. Are you a photographer then?”

“Hopefully one day.”

“Oh,” he says as he rubs his fingers over his dark stubble. I can hear it, scratchy like sandpaper. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

Suddenly I feel insecure, like he'll think I'm too young to bother with now. I shake the thought away and rescue another bite of gelato from the heat.

“You seem older than that,” he says, somehow finished with his monster cup. He wads his napkin into a ball before plopping it in.

I smile and watch as the melted remains saturate the entire napkin. “Yeah, I've been told that before, actually.”

Mom says it's the way I handle myself, especially around adults and strangers. I've been forced into more than my share
of social situations where I was often the only child, so I learned to fit in to my surroundings.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Eighteen. Just turned.”

“Really, you seem … younger than that.”

I did
not
just flirt with him.

He smiles, revealing mostly straight teeth. One of the top ones is a little crooked, but not in a hideous way. I kind of like it actually.

“Yeah, well, I—” He stops and his eyes shift behind me, wide in amusement.

I turn my head to find a couple straight out of the 1980s at the end of the gelato line. They're both sporting mullets and faded jeans. White sneakers. When I notice the matching red fanny packs, I have to look away.

“You should take a picture of that,” he says, resting his forearms on the table.

“What?” I lean in closer and speak just above a whisper. “No way.”

“Do it!” he insists. “Five euros.” He digs into his pocket and clanks down five coins.

I sneak a peek at the unsuspecting couple. The man is wiping sweat off his face with a hanky. They're too close. I'd never get away with it.

“I can't,” I say.

“Pansy.”

With a grunt, I switch my camera on and set it to automatic. I raise it to my face and start to twist my upper body.

“No, wait!” he says. “You're doing it wrong.”

I drop the camera to my lap and face him. “What?”

“You're too obvious. You need stealth. Watch and learn.” He retrieves a small point-and-shoot camera from his pocket and aims it toward me. “Say cheese!” he says so loudly that I'm sure everyone around us is looking.

“Uh … cheese?”

“Done.” He hits a few buttons and shows me the display screen.

There they are. Looked right at him too. Clever. But I can't let him win.

“Wow. That's pretty pixelated. What kind of setting do you have that on?”

He frowns. “It's just zoomed in.”

“Oh.” I reach to zoom out, but he pulls it away too fast. “What? Why can't I see? Did you actually take a picture of me or something?”

“Stealth.” He shrugs and my cheeks turn pink. “Guess these are my winnings.” The coins scrape across the table as he scoops them up to put in his pocket.

“You didn't even give me a chance to redeem myself,” I defend.

“Excuses, excuses. Just admit I'm the better photographer.” He laughs, standing to shoot his empty cup in the trash. “Finished?”

I nod and he tosses mine too. “Braver maybe, but better? Your camera doesn't have enough buttons.”

His dimples reappear as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his navy-blue cargo shorts. “Well, thanks for letting me sit with you.”

“Oh, sure. No problem.” I slouch into my seat and wiggle my fingers in a low wave before reaching into my bag for the map from the hotel.

He still hasn't walked away. “Where you headed?”

“Not sure.” I shrug. “I want to check out the Colosseum, but I'm sort of getting hungry.”

He grips the back of the chair he'd sat in and leans on it. “You ate gelato before dinner too, huh?”

I shrug again. “When in Rome.”

He laughs. “It's going to get dark soon. I'm not sure you should venture halfway across the city by yourself. Unless”—he looks around—“you're with your family or something.”

No. My family sent me over here. All. By. Myself.

“Oh. Well, I planned on going alone.”

He moves to stand next to me and points at the map. His hand lightly brushes against mine for the tiniest fraction of a second. “We're here, and the Colosseum is over here. There's no metro close, so it'll be a bit of a walk but definitely doable. I could go with you … if you want.”

I look up at him to gauge if he's serious and I feel a little swirl in my stomach.

“I don't even know your name,” I say.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” He takes a small step back and offers me his hand.

Our fingers are just about to touch when a girl's voice calls out and startles me. “Hey, Darren!”

The guy about to shake my hand turns his head in response.

A rail-thin girl strides over to us. She's wearing jean capris with a loose, purple sundress overtop, and several brass
necklaces that dangle almost to her stomach. Bulky sunglasses perch high in the messy bleached-blond hair piled on top of her head.

“I'm Darren, and this is Nina,” he says to me when she stops next to him.

Nina looks me over. “Hi.” Her tone is friendly with an under-current of protectiveness.

“Hi,” I respond, with maybe a little too much
I come in peace
worked in. “I'm Pippa.”

“Pippa? Isn't that a cute name?” Nina squeaks, surprisingly genuine. She looks up at Darren and smiles, and my eyes follow hers to him.

“It's a great name,” he agrees. There's his little twisted tooth again.

I've always thought my name was ridiculous, but if a guy can like it … My cheeks flush.