Eleven

Raph had prepared one of his specials: Grass and weeds and herbs.

"Those aren't weeds," He'd said when she had complained. "They are vegetables and they're good for you."

"It smells like puke! I'm so not eating this." She made a face, pushing the plate far, far.

"If you finish your food, I might let you have some ice cream." He promised, like he was negotiating with a four-year-old instead of a grown ass woman who had no intention of ever forking down that garbage, ice cream or no ice cream.

"You know I could walk up to the fridge and take the ice cream without your permission, right?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

Raphael frowned at that, rubbing his stubbled chin. He didn't know how sexy he looked.

"Fine. Please, could you do eat your meal for me?"

Suddenly, he was up in her space, his face pleading.

Whaaat?

"I worry so much about you, " He whispered, skimming his hand across her chin and unintentionally causing Legend to swoon a little. "Do this for me, please?" Now, those full lips of his were at her ear, his hand at her waist, gripping her bare midriff. She was really happy she'd gone for a tank top this night.

Actually, she would be happy she'd worn a tank top. Her mind couldn't focus on anything other than Raph and his sweet mouth.

"Yes." She didn't know if she was agreeing that Taylor Lautner was hotter than Robert Pattinson—lie, of course—or that Lady Gaga and Beyoncé were brothers, but she'd say yes a thousand times so long as he kept on doing that. "Yay," he said as he stepped away from her and returned to the other side of the island.

Pardon Legend, but wasn't he supposed to be devouring her instead of calmly dishing Lettuce á la puke?!

Wait a fucking second....

"Did you just seduce me into agreeing to eat my food?"

He carried his own plate over, looking befuddled.

"Seduce? No, I just appealed to your reasonable side."

Her pussy had never been reasonable and that was what he appealed to.

"No." She was pissed about bring tricked. In all fairness, she'd probably read too much into the situation, but it was his fault for being yummy—

"I'm not eating."

"You said yes."

She snorted at that. "Since when has my word ever meant shit? Moreover, I wasn't thinking with my head."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Fine. It's a looong way to morning." To emphasize his point, he crunched on a celery stick.

Legend gave in with an eye roll, grabbing the plate and offering a prayer for her fairy godmother to show up and bippity-boppity-boo the hell out of the questionable dish.

She really didn't know why the little smile of approval on Raph's face sent little shivers down her spine. Static energy, maybe.

"So, have you started work? It's the second week of October, you know. "

"Yes! I had the greatest idea while I was at the hospital last week, death looming over me!"

Raph winced at that description, but she didn't notice.

"So, my story's gonna be about this girl who gets trapped in an alternate universe and can't leave until she solves the murder mystery of a town!" She exclaimed, all giddy and bubbly.

"I'm so excited! Ooh, ooh, guess the heroine's name. Guess, quick!"

Ralph chuckled. "Ok, OK, calm down. Let's see..." He glimpsed Legend's shit eating grin and immediately looked unimpressed.

"Please, tell me her name isn't Legend Shakira."

"No." She huffed, affronted by the lack of a creative bone in his pretty body.

"Her name's Legendary Shekira. And her partner's name's Rafelo Loseré."

Raph was alarmed. "I don't even know how I made my way into this story, but I want out."

"Oh, please. You should be honored. This story is gonna piss on every other story at the contest. I'll kill it." She said with false bravado. Actually, she was scared shitless that everybody would hate it like they hated Chris Pratt and she was fucking nervous. But Raph didn't need to know that.

"Not with those names, it won't. Legendary Shekira sounds like a stripper and Rafelo sounds like her junkie boyfriend."

"Thank you for your unneeded rotten tomatoes, Raph, but the names shall remain," she decreed and forced down another forkful of mush.

"Listen," He said, green eyes suddenly serious.

"I'm sorry I made you feel bad earlier, sweetie. This might sound weird, but you're one of the most important people in my life and if I make you unconformable in any way, just tell me and I'll apologize a thousand times and run myself over with a Mack Truck, Kay?"

He gave her his crooked smile, the one that did things to her insides and made her go gooey.

God, Raph made her thirst for a lot of things. She wanted to tell him she thought the sun rose and set with him, that he was perfect and she liked his awkward, bumbling nature.

But if she did that, she would sound like she was in love, which BTW, she wasn't, no way, nu-uh, never in Nevada, so she settled for a grin that threatened to crack her face.

"You'll apologize and I'll run you over."

"Deal." He laughed.

They settled into comfortable silence and ate while they stole glances at each other like teenagers. Legend hadn't blushed so much since Lance Quill, the most popular boy in school, had told her she was pretty back in the high school days of braces and ugly haircuts. Turned out, Lance was a jerk who'd told her that because his girlfriend had asked him to so she and her squad could yuk their cute, stuck-up asses up.

And Raph had thought Legendary Shekira sounded like a stripper.

Barby Heat—Lance's girlfriend—sounded like an exotic dancer who drank one too many shots of cheap whiskey, wore enough makeup to cover all the models at Milan's Fashion Week, and was nastier than Mel Gibson on a good day.

"—did you hear a word of anything I just said?" Raph asked with his brows furrowed.

Legend smiled at him. "You talk like you're stuck in the 18th century or something. So formal. 'May I pour your tea, madam? May I gaze upon thy fair face, madam? May I grab two handfuls of your bottom, madam?'"

She made gestures with her hands and when it got to the last sentence, she grabbed the air in front of her and gave Raph a leery grin.

"I don't speak that way and you are a strange person, Madam." He mocked her.

"I was saying that I have a surprise for you tomorrow," he repeated what'd he'd said before Legend could come up with her unsettling and untrue observation.

"Really?" Surprises were fun and cool. Legend loved them, especially if they involved staying at home and watching TV while eating M&M's, ice cream, and Oreos.

She surmised that was what the surprise was.

"Yup." Raph said, obviously excited by her excitement. He got up and cleared the dishes, frowning at Legend for not finishing her meal.

"It's going to be fun."

Aah, her favorite word. She couldn't wait and she told him so.

"Me, too." He winked at her.

She watched him do the dishes then they watched TV, eating ice cream, with Raph giving her heavenly foot rubs.

Raph was bad for a woman's health.

And deadly for Legend's heart.

***

"Legend, if you don't open this door, I'm gonna ram it in with my shoulder." He didn't sound like he was joking so she quickly stuffed the bundle of clothes she'd rolled into a ball immediately after she had discovered what the 'surprise' was about under her T-shirt and groaned, "I'm coming."

She hobbled her way to the door and threw it open.

Raph took a look at her disfigured bump and said,

"Explain."

She groaned again, loud and clear and closed her eyes.

"I think I'm pregnant." She patted her bump and wondered if she was overplaying it.

Going by the look on Raph's face, she would never make a name for herself in the acting world.

"Oh, really?" His tone was worse, like someone had told him it was raining money.

"Yes, I am. I think I watched too much porn last night."

"Jesus Christ." Raph shook his head, probably to shake off the idiocy he was witnessing.

"I'm serious. That king Cobra x guy has a big, fat penis that could—"

"Please, don't finish that sentence," he begged, his eyes closed in disgust.

Legend shrugged nonchalantly, then remembered she was supposed to be in pain. She hunched her shoulders and made the shrug more pathetic.

"Is this because I told you we're going out today?"

"No!" Yes. She had never been an outside person but now that she was in the limelight with Logan's gimmicks and people had been tossing pieces of their minds about—She had been very shocked to see it on Oprah—the thought of going out was worse than having shots.

But Raph wasn't having any of it, he'd simply brushed off her quite vocal concerns, forcing her to resort to this desperate and ineffective move.

"I'm really pregnant, Raph. What's happening to me? Ohhhh, I think my water just broke."

She staggered and just then, something totally unexpected happened. Her ‘baby' fell from where she'd secured it with a thud that shouldn't be so loud but was, thanks to the deafening silence in the room.

Raph broke it.

"Great. Your baby's delivered. Let's go." At least he thought it was funny. Legend mentally promised to go leave a scathing review on Skipingsrus and tell them what she thought of their sorry jump ropes that couldn't even secure a fake baby.

"Won't you cut the umbilical cord, Nurse?" She asked sweetly, stalling for time.

"How will you feel if I throw you over my shoulder, carry you to my car, throw you in the trunk and zoom away, without asking nicely like I am now?"

He cocked his brow. That was his favorite move these days. Legend thought about shaving them off.

"Sheesh, I'm coming, I'm coming. Scrooge." She mumbled, as she grabbed her slides and brushed past him.

"Whatever happened?" He asked her while he followed her out. "You were all for this yesterday."

"Yeah, until I learned that your surprise is to feed me to the wolves." She spun to face him, feeling more than a little angry and betrayed. Raph knew how much she hated going out so why exactly was he doing this to her?

Like he'd read her mind, he answered, "You need this, you're having people problems, L. That's no way to live."

"Stop psychoanalyzing me."

"I'm telling you the truth, sweetheart. You can't be scared all the time. You have to be brave."

"‘You have to be brave," She mimicked in a gruff voice that sounded nothing like Raph's. "I was willing to put Oreos on ice cream and M&M's on pizza today; that's how brave I am. Now, I won't even get to give myself the shits because we're going—where do you say we were going again?"

She asked, driving the conversation away from the serious stuff that usually made her stomach curl up in a ball.

Luckily, Raph just rolled with it.

"I didn't say. It's a surprise." He winked at her. Lordy, lordy.

"I think I hate surprises now. Who knows? Maybe your big surprise is a trip to the town's correctional facility. Maybe, you wanna drop me off there and be rid of me forever."

He pulled the door open, and Legend stepped into the hallway.

"You know I'd never do that." He was dressed in a light vest that matched his eyes and emphasized just how muscular his chest and arms were, ripped jeans that clung to his powerful thighs, and a pair of Nike sneakers that could probably feed a family of four for a year.

He looked nice. Sexy. Like a snack. When was the last time she had a snack?

Far too long.

Raph caught her checking out his ass as they rode the elevator down, and he smiled sinfully at her.

Dude was not even helping matters. That smile would make her flood the whole building.

As they entered the garage, Legend still quite doubtful that this would end well, she thought about how much she wanted Raph.

And how tired she was of resisting the devil on her shoulder.