Relief washes over me, but it’s fleeting. When I look up again, I almost fall out of my chair.
“Well, look who I found.” Lance’s voice is full of amusement as he strides right up to the table, no fucks given. Dressed in dark denim and a navy blue button-down that he didn’t bother to tuck in, he looks casual and delicious, despite the cocky look on his face.
I plead to the heavens that he didn’t come in here just to tease me. When he winks, I know I’m screwed.
The pink in my cheeks cranks up a notch as I look from an entertained Lance to a bewildered Jonah. I should say something, introduce them, because Jonah’s confusion is clear.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Lance instead. When I shoot him a look that practically begs him not to embarrass me, he just laughs.
“I was picking up dinner.”
“In the drive-thru,” I point out.
“And they forgot my apple pie,” he says. Pride blooms on his face like he’s tickled to death he came up with a lie so quickly. “I’m Lance Gibson,” he says, turning to Jonah. “And you are?”
“Jonah.” He looks at me briefly before turning back to Lance. “How do you know Mariah?”
“Oh, we’re old friends,” Lance lies. Again. “How do you know her?”
“I’m her date.”
Lance takes a step back. I can’t decipher the look on his handsome face, whether he’s curious or irritated now. He watches Jonah far too closely for far too long.
“It’s nice to meet you, but we were just leaving,” Jonah says, putting his napkin on the table.
Scrambling to get myself together, to find my purse, to take a final sip of my Coke, I freeze everything when Lance speaks.
“You barely touched your chicken, Mariah.”
“Jonah got a call from the hospital,” I explain. “Spur of the moment thing. He’s needed there so we’re going to cut this a little short.”
“Then perfect timing. I’ll take you home,” Lance says. He narrows his eyes as if to warn me, but I skirt right around that.
“Oh, no,” I protest, holding up a hand. “That’s unnecessary.”
“I have ten minutes to get to Merom Memorial,” Jonah notes. “Would it be okay if your friend took you home? I hate asking, but we’re already in Merom and if I drive you back to Linton first—”
“I’ll get a ride. It’s fine.” He may not mean to be rude, but it certainly feels that way. Who lets another man take his date home?
Still, as he gets to his feet and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Lance, my body releases an evening full of stress. Although Lance is a giant pain in my ass, being stuck with him is better than being stuck with Jonah. At least we can argue instead of regurgitating information over and over.
“I’ll pay the bill before I leave. It was nice meeting you, Mariah,” Jonah says.
“It was nice meeting you too.” I stand, thinking I should shake his hand or something. I don’t know. Instead, Jonah leans in and kisses me on the cheek.
Glancing up at Lance, I see a fire in his eye. I hold my breath as Lance starts to take a step toward Jonah, but then he stops.
“You better get going.” Lance taps his watch. “Nine minutes.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I’ll call you.” Jonah gives me a little wave before taking off through the restaurant. Lance is in his seat before Jonah is even out of sight.
“This isn’t even a cheeseburger,” he scoffs. Pushing the plate to the edge of the table, he makes a face. “Where’d you find this guy?”
“It’s a veggie burger.”
“Did you specifically look for a guy without testosterone or did it just happen?”
“He’s nice,” I object, trying and failing, to hide a giggle.
“You didn’t think he was nice,” he mocks. “And you weren’t the least bit attracted to him.”
I wasn’t. I’m sure everyone watching us could see that. But I’m not about to admit that to Lance. Letting him think I was falling madly in love wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done. “And how would you know that?”
He leans forward, and his cologne wraps around me. “You were sitting back in your chair, for one.”
“What?” Then I look down and realize I’m mimicking his posture and leaning toward him. I shift back in my seat. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
He shrugs. “Maybe not. But your eyes did light up when you saw me.”
“You’re delusional.”
Much to my surprise, he seems to consider this. “You may be right.” He redirects his attention to the waitress now primed at the table.
“You aren’t the man who was here before,” she laughs. “Girl, where do you find these guys? I need to hang out there.”
“You’d be surprised,” I tell her. “The other guy said he was paying the check. Can you make sure he did?”
“Wait.” Lance whips a menu off the napkin dispenser. “I want dessert.”
“Lance …” I sigh, watching him scan the menu.
“What’s good here?” he asks, ignoring me.
The waitress rattles off a bunch of choices. He’d love the peanut butter pie, but I don’t tell him that.
There’s a touch of stubble dotting his cheeks. He works his jaw back and forth as he peruses the dessert choices. It’s hard, like it’s cut from granite and angled in a sharp line. My hand starts to move, to reach out on instinct and feel the roughness against my palm, but I come to my senses in the nick of time.
“I want the peanut butter pie. What about you?” He offers me the menu.
“I thought you came in to get the apple pie the drive-thru forgot?” I remind him. “Or did that slip your mind?”
“Totally slipped my mind,” he chuckles. “I’m in the mood for peanut butter now anyway.”
“Would you like a piece too?” The waitress asks as Lance and I exchange a knowing smile. “We have a great blackberry cobbler.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Give her a slice of the lemon pie,” Lance cuts in.
“I don’t want it.”
“Yeah, you do. Or at least you can sit there and look at it while I eat mine.”
Or I can sit here and look at you and pretend you’re eating me.
Oh, God.
I can’t look away from him fast enough. Lifting my purse from the seat next to me, I scavenge through it like a girl who may perish if she doesn’t locate her phone.
“Did I say something?” he asks after the waitress is gone.
“Nope. Nothing at all. Just worried I left my phone in Jonah’s car,” I say, pulling it out like a trophy. “Whew. I wasn’t sure.”
“All righty then …”
Setting it carefully next to my glass, I exhale. “I feel better now.”
“Tell me about the hippie.”
“He wasn’t a hippie,” I insist. “He’s a doctor. Or going to be one. I think. I have doubts with his lack of interpersonal communication skills.”
“How’d you meet him? Is this the guy you’ve been seeing?” He pulls his brows together. “No disrespect, but he’s not exactly the type I thought you’d be having dinner with.”
“Well, for the record, he’s not exactly who I thought I’d be having dinner with either,” I shrug. “But it’s over now.”
“So you won’t be seeing him again?”
Considering my options, I realize I have only one. There’s no way he’d believe I wanted this guy. So, I give in. “No, I’m not seeing him again. This was a blind date.”
“Ah …” Lance’s voice trails off as he blows out a breath. “That makes sense.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I take a drink of my Coke. Just as my glass hits the table, two plates of pie slide in front of us.
“Here you go!” she chatters happily. “Does it look like rain out there? I get off in an hour and was hoping for a clear night out.”
“Um, no rain,” Lance responds.
She chatters on and on about her lack of
plans. As I watch her make conversation easily, I wish I had that quality. There’s no way I could walk up to someone I just met seconds before and chatter away about my life’s hopes and dreams. But the longer I wait on her to end the conversation, the more I forget my conundrum and the more agitated I get at her for flirting with Lance.
“Excuse me,” I say, butting in. “This looks great. Thank you.”
“Oh,” she giggles. “Yes, I’m sorry. Let me know if you need anything else.” She tucks her chin and darts to the kitchen.
Lance sticks his fork in his pie, a smug look etched on his features. “Is that what jealousy looks like on you, Ms. Malarkey? I like it.”
“Why would I be jealous?” I huff, lopping a big lump of pie on my fork. “She did the same thing to Jonah so don’t feel special.”
“Oh, I didn’t feel special,” he grins. “Until now.”
“Why is that?” I ask before shoving a quarter of the pie into my mouth.
“Because when she did it to Jonah, you were looking at me. You didn’t give a fuck. But when she did it to me, you looked like you wanted to rip her throat out.”
“I did not,” I protest, gulping.
“You did and it was hot as hell.” An ember burns in his eyes so bright I can’t even look. I’ll melt. I’m sure of it.
Shoving a bite of pie into my mouth, I can’t quite get it past the lump sitting at the bottom of my throat. I cough, covering my mouth with a napkin until I manage to get it down. “That’s super lemon-y,” I eek out.
“I bet.”
“Want a bite?” I offer, trying to keep the conversation well away from the waitress and my non-jealousy.
“Nah. It’s not my favorite,” he says, taking another bite of his dessert.
“You’re lucky I like it since you ordered it for me without knowing and you don’t like it,” I say, taking a sip of my drink.
“No luck involved, sweetheart.” He takes another bite of his. “This isn’t bad, but your peanut butter icing is unbeatable.”
Charming bastard.
Sitting my fork down, I take him in. There’s no pretentiousness to his words. There’s nothing for me to get irritated about or dislike, just a kindness in his compliment that I know he means.
This is what bothers me so much about him. He keeps me off kilter on purpose.
“How did you know I’d like lemon pie?” I ask. Attempting to regroup and find my feet, I settle back in my chair and watch him.
“Because you always have a box of lemon candies in the middle drawer of your desk. I see them when you pull it out,” he adds quickly, before I can accuse him of snooping. “Do you ever make lemon cupcakes? Can you even do that?”
“Yes, you can do that,” I laugh. “I’ve made them but never gotten them exactly right.”
“After you make the red velvet, maybe you could try them?”
“I never said I was making you red velvet anything!” Lofting my straw wrapper across the table, it hits him in the chest. “Do you think I just bake to order?”
“For me, yeah.”
He hands the waitress his credit card as she walks by. “Can you ring us up?”
“Let me pay for it,” I say, tugging on my purse.
“Yeah, fucking right.”
“Sorry,” the waitress says, standing so close to Lance her hip almost touches him. She takes his card, her fingertips brushing against his. “A man like this gets what he asks for.”
“Yeah, see,” he jokes as she sashays away. “I get what I ask for.”
“Is that why you’re a brat?”
He picks up Jonah’s water glass and then sits it back down. “I almost drank from that.”
“I saw.”
“Were you going to let me?” he gasps.
“Hey, you get what you ask for,” I laugh.
He feigns irritation. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he does a speedy review of something on the screen and then pops it away. “So,” he says, leaning against the table. “What do we do now?”
“You take me home.”
“We could see a movie. Do people still do that on dates or is that old-fashioned?”
“This isn’t a date,” I point out.
He considers this. “Yeah, I think it is. You just leveled up. From hippie to me. You’re winning today.”
“Do you live to annoy me?”
“No, but watching you get all hot and bothered does turn me on.”
“Oh my God. Stop it,” I hiss.
The table next to ours apparently caught wind of his admission and look at us over their shoulders. I can’t make eye contact.
“What do you do on a date? I was serious,” he says, ignoring the hushed comments beside us.
“When was the last time you were on a date?”
Tapping his chin, his eyes sparkle. “Like a real date? Or like time with a woman?”
“A date. Dinner, a movie, a walk around the lake. Even a ride around the country,” I offer.
“I like the way you think.” A grin tips his lips. “I haven’t gone parking in years. Wanna?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Laughing, we get to our feet. He sticks his credit card back in his wallet and I wonder where her number went, but don’t ask. Just before we turn to leave, I catch him tossing a little wadded up ball on the table. He catches me watching.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say as innocently as possible.
“Can’t go anywhere and not collect digits. It’s hell being this handsome.”
We walk out of Peaches side-by-side. It’s a heck of a lot better than how I walked in.
Eight
Lance
I’m out of my fucking mind.
Don’t play with this girl, I tell myself. She’s out of your league, Gibson.
Pausing at the back of my car, I could easily tell myself it was fate that brought us together tonight. There’s leftover pizza at the house for dinner. Why I decided to drive all the way over to Peaches for takeout I’ll never know.
On the flip side, it’s a little like a ploy by Satan himself to test my restraint now that she’s in my car. I have to keep my hands to myself. I have to get in the car and pretend like I’m in there with Blaire.
Yeah fucking right.
Glancing at her through the back glass, the moonlight rippling around her like she’s some damn goddess, I want to ask the universe what I’ve ever done to deserve this … this purgatory.
My cock twists in my jeans.
Yeah, buddy, I know. Don’t explode on me until we get home.
“Hey,” I say as I open the door. It takes every bit of self-control I didn’t know I had to not just leap over the console and bite those plump, pink lips.
“Thank you for taking me home,” she breathes. “I can call a taxi if it’s an inconvenience.”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
Her eyes grow wide as she laughs. “No. Actually.”
Good. “You live in Linton, right?”
“Yeah. Just passed Carlson’s Bakery. Little brick house. Dog-ear fence in the back yard.”
“Ah, got ‘cha,” I say, getting into my seat. “Cross used to live there when we were growing up.”
“Who is that?” she asks as I start the car.
“He owns a gym in town. He’s good friends with my youngest brother, Machlan. Kind of grew up like an honorary Gibson boy.”
“There are more than one of you?” she asks, her hand flying to her chest. “Your poor mother.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart. There’s only one of me.”
Her eyes roll around in her head. “I’m sorry. I forgot who I was talking to.”
“I’m going to pretend I just hit a bump to explain that little eye-roll,” I tell her. “No worries.”
“I wasn’t worried about it,” she laughs.
I pull out of the parking lot and head toward Linton. She sings along softly to a song on the radio and I almost want to turn it down
to hear her voice. If I do that, I’m sure she’ll stop, so I don’t.
“I have two brothers and a sister,” I continue. “Blaire is an attorney in Chicago.” I know the first rule of history: it repeats itself. You start sharing your life’s details with a woman and they think that means something. I need to stop talking. “Machlan owns Crave.”
Shut. Up.
“The bar?”
“The bar,” I confirm, giving up on myself. The chain of command from my brain to my mouth is clearly broken. “Walker took over Crank from our father.”
She taps her fingers against the console. “I grew up in Lancaster. When I got the job at the school, I rented the little house I’m in now.”’
“Lancaster’s not far. What? A twenty-minute drive?”
Her fingers stop moving. Her shoulders stiffen as she gazes out her window. I can barely hear her voice when she speaks. “You can make it in fifteen if you have to.”
She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, working it back and forth. I want to reach over and pop it free. And then clamp it between my own teeth, but there’s no consent and I’m not sure she’ll give it to me. But that’s not the problem. The problem is, I’m fairly certain it was something I said that changed her spirits.
“This is why I don’t date,” I note as a car passes us without switching off its brights.
“Why is that?”
“I just said something wrong and I don’t even know what it was.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong, Lance. I just got to thinking about a phone call from my mother,” she frowns.
The street lamps get few and far between as we get farther away from town. She’s quiet for a long time.
“Want to talk about it?” I offer, needing her to come back around. When I’m the one who pisses her off, I’m okay with that. I don’t really know what to do when she’s mad at someone else.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” she admits. “My mom just … let me ask you this. Does your mom have favorites? I know that sounds ridiculously juvenile, but does she prefer one of your siblings over the others?”
“Well,” I say carefully. “My mom passed away a few years ago.”
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