Page 47 of Just Another Silly Love Song

I laughed. “Okay, now you’re scaring me.” I was abnormally surprised by my real and sincere laughter. When had he become slightly amusing to me?

The waiter placed our lasagnas and garlic bread on the table in front of us. “Buon appetito.”

“Thank you,” Ben and I said together.

We sat in silence, enjoying our first few bites of the food.

Finally, Ben looked up from his plate, grinning. “This is nice when we don’t argue. We shouldnottalk more often.”

“Not a bad thought, but that would make it extremely difficult for us to get to know each other.”

He raised his bottle to his lips and paused. “Good point. Okay, so, tell me something about you.” He took a sip of his beer.

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. I guess we can start with movies. What are you into?”

I smiled. “Romantic comedies.”

Ben shook his head and sighed. “Of course. Should’ve known.” He broke off a piece of the garlic bread.

“And what about you, Mr. Tough Stuff? I’m guessing you like the shoot-em-up-bang-bang-action-mafia movies.”

“Nope.”

“The world is ending, and someone has to stop it from happening.”

Ben shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Blood and guts and gore. You like war movies and assassins?”

“You’re so totally off the mark, it’s not even funny,” Ben said. “I’m a fan of the classics, if you must know.”

“The classics . . .”

“Yes, the classics.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Sure.” He counted the movies off on his fingers. “Roman Holiday,His Girl Friday,Pillow Talk,Bringing Up Baby,The Shop Around the Corner,The Philadelphia Story.”

I blinked.

There was no way in hell Ben liked those movies.

He probably just memorized them on the way to the restaurant to try to impress me.

I was the one who liked those movies.

I knew what he was up to.

We were supposed to be getting to know each other, but Ben wasn’t playing nicely and wasn’t going to tell the truth, because he didn’t want me to use anything against him during our show. But if Ben didn’t want me to know anything about him, why had he even agreed to lunch? All he had to do was tell me that.

The only thing I could do now was either play along with his charade or extract the truth out of him, which would be challenging, but worth it in the end.

I opted for the latter.

Ben studied me. “Why are you looking at me that way?”