“You want a clue as to how I feel?” Evan said, setting both of their glasses in the picnic basket.
She glanced around. They were alone on the beach. It was still too cold to swim, and it was too late for dog-walkers and too early for families to come and play after school.
“Jess?”
“Mmm?”
“I’m right here. I’ve been following you around like a puppy—”
“There’s nothing puppy-ish about you,” she whispered.
“Like an eager, oversized, untrainedpuppy,” he repeated. “I don’t know what I’m doing because I’ve never done anything like this.”
“Like what?”
“Seducing a woman who’s in love with another man.” He gave her a grim look. “Don’t deny it. I see how you look at him. How he looks at you.”
“He says the same thing about you.” Her heart was rioting through her chest. Gallumping. It might kill that baby bird if it wasn’t careful, the one that was madly fluttering against her ribcage. “I think you’ve said more to Brent about all of this than you have to me.”
“He got the better of me and I said too much.”
“What did you say?”
He moved closer. “I told him I wanted to see you again. That I’d ask you out.”
“You didn’t.”
“Because he told me that he still loves you.”
“You made that decision for me?”
“I got out of his way.” She protested hotly with a curse under her breath, and he held up his hands in a mea culpa gesture. “And I get that wasn’t my call to make.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m sorry.” He settled back down, leaning on one arm, and gave her a beseeching look that soothed her frustrations more than she expected.
She eased back down onto the blanket next to him.
“So,” he said softly. “There’s this amazing Latin American restaurant in Leamington some of our seasonal workers got Ty hooked on. And he in turn hooked me. It’s this little… I don’t want to say hole in the wall, because it’s not like that. Unassuming, let’s say, an unassuming shop in a strip mall, and their salsa is the best I’ve ever had. Amazing pupusas.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “I’ll have to check it out.”
He gave her a funny look.
“What?”
“I’m suggesting we go together.”
“You and me? To Leamington for tacos? That wasn’t clear.” She said it innocently. “Like on a date?”
“You want me to ask you properly.”
“Yes. It’ll be our first date, and I think the nice thing is to ask me clearly. Given the lack of clarity in the past.”
