Love on the Air(24)

This would be complicated enough if they were just playing a straight round of the dating game. But that was exactly what they were trying not to do.

Jason came to the rescue, popping his head over the back of the couch. "We got two pizzas!" he announced. "We usually just get one. Only one's got pineapples on it." He made a face.

"Ham and pineapple," Rick explained. "And the other one's pepperoni. I forgot to ask what you liked."

"Perfect." The scenario couldn't have been more natural. No candlelight seductions here; just two boys and a movie. So what if one of them was full-grown and gorgeous? Christie relaxed slightly, and held her plastic grocery bag aloft. "Microwave popcorn, as promised. Now, do you know the secret ingredient?"

"If you say diet butter spray I'm going to kill you."

"Just the opposite. M&Ms." He looked at her quizzically. Christie explained, "You throw them on as soon as the popcorn comes out of the microwave. They get all warm and melty on the inside." He still looked dubious. Just about everyone did, until they tried it. "Think about it. If you want to give it a try, I'll make a believer out of you."

Rick relieved her of the grocery bag and led her toward the kitchen, where two pizzas waited on the counter. While she helped herself to a slice of each, Christie glanced around Rick's apartment. No sign yet of any Christmas decorations, but then, it was only the first week of December. It was one of those apartments with no dividing wall or doorway between the living room and the kitchen; the carpet simply gave way to tile. A piano in the corner of the living room drew her eye. Incongruously, an exercise treadmill stood at the opposite end of the room.

She couldn't help herself. As he led her into the living room, she said, "Who decorated your place, Mozart or Gold's Gym?"

Rick laughed. "You know what they say. Out of sight, out of mind. I spend most of my time out here, and when the treadmill was in the bedroom, it was too easy to ignore. The piano-" He paused beside it, resting a hand on the keys to play a chord absently. It seemed as much an extension of him as the controls in the studio. He shrugged. "The piano belongs in the middle of the house."

Christie glanced at the sheet music resting on the music stand in front of the keys. It was an Andrew Lloyd Webber score. She would have loved to hear it, but she was sure Jason wouldn't appreciate it. "I'm jealous. I've always wanted to learn an instrument. I just never had the knack."

"Persistence." Another light chord. "Plus, when I was little, I could never stay away from it. By the way, mind if we eat in the living room?"

Christie laughed. She was already parking on the couch. "This is where everybody is, right?"

A plate of half-demolished pizza sat on the coffee table in front of Jason. Another plate sat, untouched, to Jason's right, apparently waiting for Rick. That left a space for Christie on Jason's left. She wondered if it was by foresight or by chance that he'd put Jason in the middle. Either way, she decided, definitely a good move.

As she sat down and started to set her plate on the coffee table, Rick scooped a large, squatty glass bowl off the table. "Sorry. You probably don't want turtles on the dinner table."

"Turtles?" Christie straightened and peered into the bowl before Rick could spirit it away. Sure enough, two small green turtles ambled over the rocks resting half-in, half-out of shallow water. "I didn't think you could get those any more."

"Shh. The state of California says no, but some swap meet vendors aren't so fussy." Rick set the bowl on an end table, then took another glance inside it. "Jason," he said impatiently. "There are only two in here again."

Christie had been about to sit back down. Her knees snapped straight. She looked on the couch cushions behind her, then on the floor near her feet, before both Rick and Jason burst out laughing at her. She looked from one to the other, realizing she'd been had.

"There only are two!" Jason giggled at her.

His giggle was too infectious; Christie couldn't glare at him. Instead, she aimed her glare at Rick, but the teasing light in his eyes was just as hard to resist. They'd caught her in that quintessentially female fear of crawly things.

"I was just afraid I'd crush one," she said lamely.

After they'd eaten, Rick let Christie take over the popcorn preparation in the kitchen. He started to load their plates into the dishwasher, then thought better of it. He wasn't sure how many dirty dishes were already inside, or how long they'd been there. They might have gotten pretty disgusting by now.

Christie started the microwave while Jason watched her expectantly. "How often do you guys do this?" she asked.