Jasmine Guillory - The Proposal

His phone buzzed.

Come on, I’ve lived in California way too long not to love Mexican food, what an insulting question. If I get over the insult, which I’m not sure I will, checking out your favorite taqueria sounds great.

He laughed at his phone and put down his fork.

A thousand apologies. But who knows, you may not like everything at this place. Some of it might be too spicy or too weird for you.

He took his first bite.

Want to bet?

He grinned.

Chapter Eleven

. . . . . . .

Nik woke up on Friday at her usual eight a.m. and immediately thought about her date with Carlos that night. Okay, it wasn’t a date date. It was just a glorified hook up, with food first—she was pretty sure they both knew that. But still. Whatever it was, she was excited about it.

She forced herself to work all morning, but by noon, her mind was wandering to where they’d go tonight, how he would look, and oh shit, what she should wear. The last time he’d seen her it was after she’d raced out of her house when Courtney had called her in a panic, and she had not at all been prepared to see anyone, let alone him. She needed to show that she could look good if she tried.

Something casual, chill, and cool. Something she would look incredibly sexy in, but still looked like a normal outfit to wear to a taqueria on the Friday night of a holiday weekend. All of that should be no problem at all for her, the person who had worn her holey Stanford T-shirt and threadbare yoga pants almost every day this week.

She dug into the back of her closet, the place she put stuff that she bought whenever she got a big rejection and let her online shopping fingers roam free.

Oooh, that leather jacket. She’d bought it last month when the New Yorker had rejected a piece she was sure they’d love. It had arrived in the middle of one of L.A.’s spring heat waves, so she hadn’t even tried it on and had stuck the box in her closet.

She opened it and winced at the number on the receipt. What had she been thinking? Was it too late to return this?

Then she put it on. Holy shit, this thing made even her old yoga pants look hot. She adjusted the zippers and grinned at herself in the mirror. If she wore that, plus her one sexy pair of jeans that gave her an ass like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends, she could wear any shirt and she would look great.

She sat back down at her desk and looked at her to-do list, full of crap she had no desire to do. After fifteen minutes of trying to make phone calls and just getting voice mail boxes—some of them full—she gave up. It was Friday afternoon; everyone on the East Coast had already cut out of work by now, and everyone on the West Coast was pretending they had. She might as well join them.

After an hour and a half of yoga, an hour of yoga recovery flat on her back on her couch, a shower, and an hour of trying on shoes and makeup to go with her outfit, she was ready for Carlos, only two minutes after he was supposed to pick her up. Luckily, he was five minutes late.

“Hey! I’m outside. Sorry I’m late,” he said when he called. “Should I come up, or . . .”

“No, I’ll come down,” she said. She felt ridiculously high school. She rolled her eyes at herself. This wasn’t a date, remember?

Carlos was standing at the door when Nik walked outside. She’d kind of expected him to be waiting for her in the car. That made her feel even more high school, but in a good way.

“Hi,” she said to him.

He grinned at her.

“Holy shit, you look great.”

She tried to keep her smile from stretching across her entire face but may have failed.

“Thanks! So do you.” She reached up to hug him and he leaned down to kiss her. She hadn’t quite expected them to be at the kiss hello stage yet, but she liked kissing him so much she’d take any excuse to kiss him.

“Hungry?” he asked, when they finally pulled away.

She wiped her lip gloss off his mouth with her thumb and walked with him to his car.

“Starving. I only had a salad for lunch in preparation for this meal.” In retrospect, she should have at least had a snack after yoga. Oh well, at least she knew there would be plenty of food where they were going.

He opened the passenger door for her.

“That is one of the biggest compliments anyone has ever given me,” he said.

She smiled at him as he started the car.

“You said you were the food expert. I’m trusting you here.”

“You were right to trust me, and I’m very grateful, especially after I insulted you so gravely by questioning your allegiance to Mexican food.”

She shook her head sadly.

“I’m still not over that. You’re going to have to give me a little time.”

He squeezed her thigh before moving his hand back to the gearshift.

“Take all the time you need.”

He accelerated as he got onto the freeway.

“You know, I never learned how to drive a stick.” She traced the outline of his fingers with her fingertips. “But boy, do I like watching other people do it.”

He glanced down at her hand, then looked back up at the road.

“My dad made both me and my sister learn to drive stick before we could learn an automatic. He said if you learned an automatic first, you got too lazy to really learn how to drive, but if you learned how to drive on a stick, you’d be a better driver for life.” He frowned at her, but still with a smile in his eyes. “I still can’t believe you had the gall to say I drive too fast. Me, of all people.”

She lifted her hand from his and pointed at the speedometer.

“You’re currently going fifteen miles over the speed limit, Mr. Safety First.”

He shrugged.

“I can’t help it if everyone else on the road is so timid, can I?”

She laughed and shook her head and settled back into her seat.

“I hope you have passenger-side airbags and good insurance.”

Fifteen minutes later, after a drive through some of the less gentrified parts of the Eastside, they pulled up in the parking lot at his new favorite taqueria.

“Here we go,” he said. “Taqueria de los Campos. Before we go in, really, is there anything you don’t won’t eat? I mean, other than blue cheese and olives.”

“Oh, there are plenty of things I won’t eat other than blue cheese and olives, but I don’t think those things are going to be at a taqueria.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“What do you mean? Have you never been to a real taqueria? There are lots of things there that plenty of people don’t eat.” He paused. “Wait. Do you go to . . . Chipotle?”

She laughed and opened the car door.

“Okay, yes, I have been to Chipotle in my time, but I’ve also been to a lot of real taquerias. I’ve lived in California most of my life, I told you!”

He got out of the car and came around to her.

“Hmm, okay. Where in California?”

He still sounded very suspicious.

“I grew up in Sacramento. My parents still live there and are very confused about why I live in L.A. now without what they see as a stable job, instead of moving back home. They’re very supportive of my career, even though they don’t understand it.”

Carlos grinned at her.

“I’ve seen how that goes with some of my cousins who have jobs their parents have never heard of. Sacramento is respectable, but I’m still reserving judgment on your taqueria cred. What are the other things you don’t eat?”

They walked the short way up to the entrance, and he opened the door for her.

“Jell-O in all forms, custard in all forms, but especially when it’s inside of a doughnut, chicken breast, carrot cake, raw peaches—cooked ones are fine—and shredded coconut. There, are any of those things going to be inside of a taco?”