She picked up her doughnut and took a bite, getting pink frosting on her upper lip. He’d gotten one of the Cheerwine doughnuts because he liked Cheerwine, liked the bright pink frosting and thought she’d enjoy them. If they made this thing happen, he would bring her Cheerwine doughnuts every morning for the rest of their lives, just so he could lick the frosting off her lips.
Even better if she got some on her cheek.
She chewed slowly and deliberately, which should have bothered him, but didn’t. Marsie was buying time. He knew her well enough to know that—sometimes—she needed to think. And, like all things Marsie did, she thought with care and purpose.
If she spoke too quickly, from emotion, then he would be worried.
Finally, she swallowed, dabbed her hands on her napkin again, and said, “How do I know that isn’t the orgasm talking?”
“Um,” he stuttered. Frankly, her question had taken him by surprise, though it probably shouldn’t have. Trust Marsie to contemplate her way past the rest of the bullshit surrounding their conversation and get right to the heart of it.
Could she trust him?
If she was going to be blunt, he could be too. “I’ve had orgasms with other women. No matter their intensity, I’ve never sat in the afterglow thinking, this is it. This is the spark I was waiting for. That was just you.”
She pulled off a piece of doughnut and popped it in her mouth. She followed that bite with a long drink of coffee, her slender fingers wrapped around the delicate cup. The elegance of her hands were made for fragile china. She made her china look better. She made everything look better.
If he were lucky, she would make him look better. If he were really lucky—and tried real hard—she would make him better by being herself.
“But I thought that spark was something that happened when you met someone. That it happened right off the bat. No waiting. Not getting to know someone. One day strangers, the next day, true love.” He didn’t let the edge in her voice bother him. He had a goal in mind, and being distracted by her worries would only get in the way of getting there.
If she didn’t want to be with him, if she didn’t want to pursue the intensity that she’d also felt, then that was one thing.
But if she was afraid...
“I’ll be honest, that’s what I thought, too.” With Marsie, honesty would only help him. Which was good, since he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to lie to her.
“What changed your mind?”
It was his turn to take a bite of his doughnut. He must also have gotten a bit of frosting on his lip, too, because her lips pursed into a smile she was trying to hide.
“Smile all you want,” he said. “You’ve got a streak on your lip, too.”
“What!” She swiped at her lip with her napkin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He touched the frosting on his lip with the tip of his tongue. “Because I have hopes for this conversation. And those hopes end with a scenario where I get to lick that frosting off you. It would be self-defeating to let you remove it first.”
“Humph,” she said, but she looked pleased and left the rest of the frosting there. “You still have a question to answer.”
“So I do.” Now it was his turn to need a moment to think. “It wasn’t the sex, though I know that’s what you’re thinking. The sex helped. The sex was amazing. The sex was fire and lightning, none of this small spark stuff.
“But what really changed my mind was the after. When you were so obviously uncomfortable and wanted me gone. As I was dragging my feet to my car, it struck me that I was more worried about you than about anything else. Not worried how you thought about me. Not worried about what you would say about me. But strictly worried about you. About you separate from me, but also about how I don’t think I can be separate from you.”
He picked up his cup, then put it down. Then picked it up again. And put it down. “That’s what changed my mind.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t just the orgasm talking?”
“If it was, my orgasm has never spoken so loud before. I’m thinking I should listen to it.”
That got an honest-to-God chuckle out of her. “Okay. I don’t want to know about your previous relationships. They’re not really any of my business. But if you say this is different, then I will believe you.”
He pulled the top off his biscuit sandwich and plopped the piece of fried chicken on his plate, then cut a piece off. The sandwich was too messy to eat as a sandwich. The conversation was the only messy thing he would allow himself right now.
“I’m not the only one who needs to say why this—” he gestured between them with his fork “—is different. I’m not the only one who had rules for dating that sex broke.”
“No.” When she took a bite out of her biscuit sandwich, lettuce, tomato and chicken popped out the other end, but she stuck through her choice. Marsie was braver than he was.
“I’ve been on a bunch of dates with men who, on paper, are perfect for me. They were great. And I’m sure, really great men for someone else. Interesting. Witty.”
He was starting to feel like his chances of converting her to a yes were getting smaller and smaller with every compliment she gave all those men. Then she started to look sheepish. He could be patient a little longer.
“My friend Beck—you should meet her. You’d like her and she’d like you. Anyway, she’s getting a divorce from a man who, on paper, is perfect for her. Or was, when they got married. She told me that I wasn’t looking for the perfect man, I was looking to date myself. And that I’d get bored, because while I’m interesting and cool, I’m not challenging to myself. I believe her exact words were, ‘you’re not a sock.’”
He barked out a laugh.
“Does this make me a shoe?”
“I think it means you’re showing me new worlds. Ones outside the sock drawer.”
New worlds, huh? Jason liked to think he wasn’t a seventeen-year-old boy looking to strut his sexual prowess, but he’d buy a throw pillow that advertised that he took women to new worlds—even if she referred to a piece of bedroom furniture. Even if Marsie was the only woman he ever took there again.
Even under his ego, he knew her answer wasn’t quite enough. “So all the interesting, witty men couldn’t show you new worlds. What, then, am I?”
“Interesting and witty, of course. But it’s more than that. You’re not repeating me back to me. If I asked you what travel destinations were on your bucket list, you would probably tell me someplace that I’d never considered—maybe not even heard of. It’s more than wanting to go to a city instead of the beach or skiing instead of hiking.
“I didn’t know who Thomas Day was until you talked about him and his woodworking, but there’s probably a museum somewhere of his cabinets and woodworking. I wouldn’t even know to look for a museum like that. You would know and want to go, and my world would be bigger.”
Jason finally took a sip of his coffee. It was cold and he grimaced. He stood, poured his coffee into the sink, sat back down and refilled his cup with coffee that he was actually going to drink this time. “So where do we go from here?” he asked as he poured cream into his coffee.
“A date? I don’t know. I’ve never gone from friends to lovers before. Once you’ve crossed the line, do you keep on like lovers trying to get to know each other, or like friends who are having sex?”
He smiled into his coffee as he took a sip. Marsie sure did like rules. “I think there’s a third way. Or maybe there’s our way, and it doesn’t have to be measured.”
She frowned at him, but he knew the scowl was a fake so he continued to smile. He was probably going to be doing a lot of smiling for a long time. “We’ve not gone out to celebrate your poker winnings yet. How about we get dinner?”
She scoffed. “Let me get this straight. For our first
date as a couple, I’m supposed to take you out with the money I won off your friends at a poker game you invited me to so I would teach them a lesson about not underestimating women?”
“Well... I really just wanted them to get their asses kicked in person by a woman. I hope they learned a lesson, but I’m pretty sure they will need you to win the shirts off their backs a couple more times before they’ve learned anything close to a lesson.”
She was cutting the other doughnut in two and looked up at him, amusement dancing in her eyes. Of course, it was dancing with something akin to irritation, but that was a line they’d been walking through their entire friendship. It wasn’t like their relationship would be reborn as something different because now they got to sleep with each other.
It just meant he’d get to wake up next to her. And that was awesome.
“But I’m paying for our first date?”
“We could look at it two ways.” He put down his fork and lifted one finger. “One, you’re paying for our first date and I’m enough of a feminist to be okay with that. My masculinity will survive.”
He lifted another finger. “The other way to look at it is that my friends are paying for our first date. They just didn’t realize it at the time.”
“And neither did we.”
He inclined his head to her. “And neither did we. But, we had said we’d use some of the money for you to take me out to dinner. So that’s what we’ll do. It’s just that the parameters of the date will be different.”
“When?” she asked.
“When are we going to dinner?”
“I want to know that, too, but when did our relationship start?”
“Do you have a date that you need to know if you should cancel?”
She giggled. “No.”
“Are you planning a first month anniversary present already?”
“No.” Marsie always looked so tickled to be teased, and it was such a pleasure because all her stiffness seemed to dance when she was amused and didn’t think she should be. He had always wondered why more people didn’t tease her.
Probably because they mistook the serious, planning, sharp-edged Marsie for the whole of Marsie, as opposed to it just being a part of who she was.
“Then what?”
“I guess I want to know when we went from being friends to be lovers. I like to know things.”
She liked to define things, but he didn’t argue with her. Teasing was one thing, but he shouldn’t push just to make her uncomfortable.
“I’d say when was last night. As of last night, we’re dating. We just haven’t gone on a date yet.”
She laughed at that one. “Okay. So when should we go on our first date? The one that I’m paying for because you’re a good feminist.”
“Hey, now, you’re twisting my words,” he said with mock outrage.
He had no idea how she managed to look smug while taking a bite of her biscuit, but she did. Maybe it was the way her nose wrinkled like she was a bunny with a carrot dripping honey. “How’s this? I’m enough of a feminist not to quibble that you’ve gotten out of paying for our first date and I’ll let you pay for the second. The third and fourth will get worked out later.”
“That biscuit must be good if you’re already planning ahead dates three and four.”
“Oh, stop.”
“I think dates three and four will work themselves out on their own, without much help from us.” He speared a bit of his biscuit. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve not gone on date one, yet.”
“What do we do on date one?”
“Since you’re paying, I’ll come up with the idea. And we’ll do it today.”
“Today? But...?”
“Do you have other plans?”
“Not really. I just like time to think about what I’m doing before I do it.”
“You can have time to think about it. After we finish eating our breakfast, I’m going to help you clean up. Then I’m going to run home and get a few things. I’ll be back in about an hour and our first date can start.”
“Okay. What are we going to do?”
“Dinner, right?”
“Yes, right.” She glanced over at the clock above the stove. “At what? Noon?”
“Nah.” He shook his head, enjoying messing with her a little. He wouldn’t push her too far—he hoped—and he’d certainly stop if she got angry, but he thought a part of her enjoyed being poked at a bit. It probably happened too little in her life. “I’ve got a great idea for what we can do today. And I’ve got an idea for dinner.
“All I need is you to pay for it,” he said with a wink.
She huffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?”
“Hmm... Honestly, I don’t know.” He was back to not wanting to push her too far. “I think you’ll enjoy it, and I’ll tell you if you insist on knowing. But I’d like to surprise you. I don’t think it’s somewhere you would consider going on your own.”
Marsie had a good poker face. Not a single muscle in her face moved as she tried to think about whether she wanted to know, but he could practically feel the thoughts circle in the air around her. When he finally blinked, he knew she had capitulated.
“Okay. I trust you.”
He breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t known he was holding. Trust was far more than he had expected. More than he could have hoped for.
And he prayed to God that he would live up to that promise.
“I do have one question, though.” Because of course she did. She probably had thousands of questions, and part of what had been whirling in the air around them had been all of those questions, and she had been sorting through them, trying to figure out which ones were the most important and which ones she could live in ambiguity with.
“Shoot.”
“What should I wear?”
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked the weather. “You can wear what you’re wearing now.”
He’d quite like that, in fact. She looked hot in her leggings. “But it looks like it might get a bit chilly. So maybe bring a sweatshirt for during the day and something warmer at night. And comfortable shoes. We’re going to be walking a bit.”
“What time will I be home?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s two questions.”
She practically snarled at him and he laughed. “Okay, okay. How late we get home can vary. Some of it will depend on dinner, but if you hate it, we can head home anytime. I’m not kidnapping you. Though, we can arrange it if you’re into that sort of thing.”
To his surprise, she said, “I do like a little dress up, but we’ll have to work our way up to that.”
Okay. That was unexpected. It was one of the things he loved about Marsie, from the time he’d learned that she helped get one of the cafeteria ladies’ kid into college. “I will keep that in mind.”
“You’re not going to blindfold me on the drive or anything like that.”
“I thought we’d decided that we’d have to be a little further into our relationship before we played dress-up games. Not that I’m not interested, just...”
She actually tossed her napkin at him. It was probably one of the most unexpected things that had ever happened to him. He held up his hands in surrender. “No. I won’t make you wear a blindfold. It’s not that big of a surprise. You can even have your phone out the entire way and try to figure out where we’re going.”
“Ah, but can I drive?”
He glanced to the front of her house where she had a Prius parked in the driveway. “Man, it would save me a ton on gas. And if I save on gas and you’re buying my dinner, then I’m getting a great date with a hot, smart, awesome girl for free.”
She was trying t
o scowl again, but she couldn’t keep it up. No matter the frown her face was trying to make, her eyes were laughing.
“Here’s the thing. The problem with you driving is that you don’t know where we’re going. I’d have to give you directions. And that’s inefficient. Or I’d have to drive. I’ll drive your car, if you want. I’m sure your little Prius will be more fuel efficient.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He hadn’t really expected her to give up control of the driving of her car. She was clearly struggling with giving up control of the decision making. The driving of her car had seemed like a bridge she wouldn’t cross.
“Sure. My car is fuel efficient. Your truck...isn’t. I’m a fan of the environment, and I like my air quality. I’m not going to quibble about you driving my car. You’re right that you know where we’re going and I don’t. And you’re also right that it’s more fuel efficient. I like to be in control and I like to know things, but I’m not unreasonable.”
“No, you’re not.” Hell, he felt like the unreasonable one now for even doubting her. It was a neat trick she played on him. He’d have to be on his toes around her at all times.
It was awesome.
“So we’re set. I’ll be back in about an hour. And I’ll drive you to an unknown place for a date. You’ll pay for dinner.”
“Do we get lunch?”
“How many questions do you have stored up in your head that you’re not asking?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure someone has figured out prime numbers that high, but it will be years before they manage a prime number higher.”
“Okay. I don’t know what that means, other than I’ll be about fifteen extra minutes so that I can look that up online in the privacy of my own home.”
“Ha.” But she was pleased. He could tell.
“I’ll make sure you get lunch. Sandwiches, or would you like something special?”
“Something special, of course. What kind of idiot woman would take sandwiches over something special?”
“I’ll see you soon, then?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll clean this up.” She sounded disappointed.
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