She turned to him and raised her eyebrows.

“Wait, did you really tell me that I was right? I’m stunned.” They walked by a streetlight that showed him the smile on her face. He smiled back.

“I have a lot of faults, but I’m good at acknowledging when other people are right.”

She stopped next to a black hatchback and gestured to it.

“This is me. Thanks for walking me to my car. Um, have a good night.”

He nodded at her and stepped back onto the sidewalk.

“You, too.”

While she got into the car and started it, he leaned against the street-cleaning sign and pulled out his phone. He had no intention of going back to the bar—Ben would just harass him into going dancing, and Theo had reached his party limit about an hour ago. Ben had known him all his life; he was used to Theo disappearing from parties when he’d had enough. Even his own parties.

He opened an app to get a ride back to Berkeley. Ugh, there was a five-minute wait for a ride. Hopefully no one thought he looked threatening hanging out in this residential neighborhood for the next five minutes, waiting.

“What are you doing? Why are you still standing there?” Maddie had started to pull away and was now shouting at him out the window of her car.

“Waiting for a ride home,” he shouted back. “Someone’s coming in”—he checked his phone—“now it’s six minutes? Why do these apps have such problems with time?”

“You’re not going back to your party?” She was looking at him like he was some sort of alien, which made sense. Maddie was probably used to all those life-of-the-party kinds of guys who he’d always seen as foreign to him.

He shook his head.

“The party is mostly over. I told you, Ben’s trying to get people to go dancing, and I’m not in the mood.”

She closed her eyes for a minute, probably trying to conceive of how someone like him existed. Another car pulled up alongside her car, and the driver made that Are you coming out? motion. Maddie nodded at her and turned back to him.

“Get in.”

Wait, what? Was she going to take him back to the bar, or . . .

“Come on, someone wants this spot. Get in! I’ll take you home.”

Well hell, if she wanted to save him a thirty-five-dollar ride home from San Francisco to Berkeley, he wasn’t going to say no. He quickly canceled his ride request and opened her passenger door.

“Thanks, Maddie, I appre—”

“No need to thank me. It’s fine. I’m going the same direction as you are, and it’s cold outside. I saw you shivering while we were walking to the car. Why don’t men wear jackets?”

She glared at him as she leaned forward and turned the heat on in her car.

“I do wear jackets! Sometimes. It was so warm when I was getting dressed today, and it felt ridiculous to put something warmer on when I was walking to BART to come out here this evening.” The warm air coming out of her car heaters felt really good right now. “Though, that’s definitely one of my faults—I’ve lived in the Bay Area for a long time; I should know it’s always at least ten degrees cooler in San Francisco than it is in the East Bay, and it gets really cold at night, but I never prepare for it.”

Why was he still talking about the weather? He shut his mouth and settled into the passenger seat.

He glanced in her direction. She certainly didn’t look happy to have him in her car. She was right that they were going in the same direction, but this was the first time he and Maddie had ever been alone together, and she really didn’t seem to be enjoying the situation.

He didn’t know what to talk about with her, or if he should talk at all. They’d been getting along well tonight, strangely, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

“I’m surprised you watch House Hunters,” he said. “I would have thought you’d watch Project Runway or all of those fashion-y shows.”

Here he was, pushing his luck.

She shrugged.

“Oh, I watch it mostly because everyone expects me to have seen all of the episodes. But it feels like work, not relaxation.” She sighed. “You know what the most relaxing show of all time is?”

He sat up straight and turned to face her.

“No, tell me.”

The peaceful smile spread across her face.

“The Great British Baking Show. It’s the best.”

Unfortunately, this time he couldn’t chime in about his love of the show.

“I’ve never watched it, but people have told me that. What do you love about it?”

They merged onto the Bay Bridge, along with many other cars. Thank God he’d come up with something to talk about; they’d be here for a while. He relaxed into her passenger seat.

“Well, it’s a competition show—in Britain it’s called The Great British Bake Off. I don’t know why it has a different name here.”

He turned to her.

“I know this! It’s because of Pillsbury. It has a trademark for the term ‘ Bake-Off’ in America, so they had to change the name.”

She nodded.

“That sounds like the kind of thing you would know.” Yep, he’d pushed his luck just a little too hard. Was it his fault he loved trivia like that?

“Anyway, I like it because even though it is a competition show, the contestants are so kind and gentle with one another. It’s such a soothing show.”

He nodded.

“Sounds good. I’ll have to watch it.”

Silence descended on the car again, but this time he didn’t try to fill it. They burst out from the tunnel on the lower deck of the bridge, and he saw the white tower of the Bay Bridge glowing in the darkness. He loved this part about coming home from San Francisco at night.

“Why didn’t you want to go dancing with your brother?” she asked him.

He laughed. If she only knew either him or Ben better, she’d never ask that.

“I wasn’t in the mood.”

She turned to him with one of those annoying grins she always sent his way.

“Oh, I get it. You can’t dance. It’s okay, not everyone is blessed with dancing ability. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Oh hell no. He would not let this stand.

“I can too dance,” he said. Maybe a little too loudly.

She chuckled.

“Sure you can. It’s okay, you don’t have to prove anything to me.”

He shook his head.

“I know I don’t—I don’t need to prove anything to anyone—but I’m a fucking great dancer.”

She nodded.

“Mmmhmm.” She gestured to the freeway signs up ahead. “What exit?”

For some reason, her attitude was really getting to him.

“University. I’m near the North Berkeley BART station. And you can mmmhmm however much you want, but I speak the truth.”

She changed lanes to follow his directions. He tried not to watch her expression too much. He didn’t want to look like he was staring at her. But when a smile hovered around her lips, he found himself smiling back. Why? He had no idea.

He pointed at his building. Finally.

“This is me. Thanks for the ride. Remember: I can outdance you any day.”

She pulled up in front, and he opened his car door and jumped out. Thank God he was home. He needed to go inside and sober up.

As he walked up the pathway to his building, he heard another car door slam, and he looked behind him to see Maddie standing on the sidewalk.

“You really didn’t think I was going to let you end this conversation without me making you prove your alleged dancing prowess, did you?”

Chapter Two

MADDIE HADN’T PLANNED ON CALLING HIS BLUFF. SHE’D KNOWN THEO was bullshitting her in the car about how he was supposedly such a great dancer, but it was his birthday, so she was going to let him have this one. But he had to throw that shot in at the end, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

She followed him into his apartment and ignored his groans and pleas for mercy as she looked around. This place was so spotless and well decorated it looked like he’d had a magazine shoot earlier that day. Granted, she could identify most of the furniture as IKEA, but it still all looked way better here than any IKEA furniture she’d ever had. Big navy blue immaculate couch, cozy-looking chair to the side of it in warm caramel, wood coffee table with perfectly lined-up magazines, packed-full bookshelves she was sure were organized first by genre and then alphabetically. Yes, this apartment made sense for the stick-up-his-ass Theo she knew and loathed.

“I drove you home. It’s the price of the drive,” she said, interrupting his whine that it was his birthday and he was tired. “I’m not leaving until I see some dancing.” She waved to the middle of the living room floor.

He shook his head and sighed.

“Okay, fine, I’ll do it, but—I know I’m going to regret this tomorrow—I’m getting another drink first. Maybe then I’ll forget this happened. You want one?” He didn’t wait for an answer but turned to walk down the hallway.

He had to have another drink before he tried to dance. Oh, this was going to be so fucking funny. She couldn’t wait. She grinned as she followed him to the back of his apartment.

“Wow, that’s incredible.” She stopped when she walked into the kitchen and stared at his bar cart.