“Coffee,” he agreed. “Panera’s next door.”
“Could we not pick there? Because if we happened to grab coffee at the same time, it shouldn’t be right across from the firehouse.”
She had quite the point. He had changed back into his chief’s uniform this morning. “You want to find a Starbucks?”
“Or you could drive me home first. I walked, and Kevin never wants to see this cake again. So it’s all mine.” She hefted the box jovially.
“Okay,” he found himself agreeing to drive her home in his official CCFD vehicle.
Not a problem. He was giving another firefighter a ride home.
She situated herself in the passenger seat, setting the cake box between them on the center console, which contained his radio and GPS.
“Where to?” he asked, starting the engine.
“Doctor Row,” she answered. “I have a one-bedroom there, six blocks from the firehouse and keeps me from being late. You don’t like late.”
“Not so much.” He shifted into gear.
He didn’t remember six blocks taking this long.
Should he say something? He ought to compliment her outfit or hair.
Are White guys allowed to compliment African American women’s hair, especially if they’d not formally dated?
“So maybe we should think about coffee and cake at the North Star,” she said. “I don’t think anyone we know would be there. At least one of them is calling Charlie, and I think Luna is somewhere with Elias. Drew doesn’t work at the North Star.”
“It’s only coffee,” he said. He’d finally made a move, and she almost sounded like she was trying to talk him out of it.
“Yeah, it’s coffee. Nothing committed. I’m overthinking.” She started twisting a lock of hair in her hands. “Sorry, when I get nervous or flustered, I start talking, and I don’t stop talking, and you’ve totally noticed that because you’ve been around me a couple of times now, and I can’t stop. Tell me to stop. If you don’t tell me to stop, I won’t stop talking, and it will go on and on and on—”
“I told you, it’s refreshing,” He tried to control his own emotions. Somehow, this gorgeous girl was nervous around him, when her siren song drew him to her unerringly.
“You know… I have a coffee machine in my house. And we have a cake right here,” she suggested.
He almost drove off the road.
Had she proposed skipping all the preliminaries and getting right to the physical?
“Too much? I said too much. I take it back. North Star is a good idea.”
Noah placed his hand on hers. The tiny brush of his fingers on her warm hand froze her words. “Your place is fine, Erin.”
She inhaled deeply at the sound of her name on his lips. “Okay. My place.”
He drove behind an end row-house on Doctor Row.
She manually opened up the garage door, and he pulled inside the empty garage. “Where’s your car?” Noah asked, turning off the GPS. He wasn’t on duty, and he didn’t want a curious soul at HQ to decide to track him. They could call him if they needed him.
“Around.” She hefted the cake box.
“Do you own a car?”
“Yes, I own a car. If you must know, it’s at Theo’s.” She headed to the door.
“Why there?” He was the nervous one now. He’d entered her personal space, the most uncharted territory of his career.
“Because we carpooled to the leadership training, and I didn’t bother to get it back. Is this Twenty Questions about my environmental conscious transportation options, or should you be excited there was a place to put the Chief’s Car?” she asked, getting to the point.
