Her beaded charm bracelet.
Beck walks over to us, shouldering his bag. “The idiot is right. Just ask the question, that’s all Sutton’s looking for.”
“See! Beck’s got it.”
I think about it again, and have an idea in my head.
“Hi. Gimme a minute,”her tender voice echoes. I must be on speakerphone.
Setting my phone down, I press the mute button and take a large breath. Slowly inhaling. Then exhaling out my nerves—only for them to return when I take my next breath.
The guys were right, I should take her on a date, and I want to take Sutton on a date. A proper one—pick her up, hold the car door open. Hold her hand. Drag the sensitive skin of her knuckles up to my lips and kiss them. Kiss her.
I want to kiss her. A lot.
Maybe sit on the same side of the booth. Be those people, because I’ve waited almost a decade to be those people with her.
Nudge the tip of her shoes with mine. Watch as she blushes because even as much as we know each other, turning a new page in our book, she’s still Sutton. She’s still the girl who asked for help at the beginning of the semester. She’s confident in everything but this.
Maybe we’d share a shake—no. That’d be pretty hard. We aren’t going anywhere with shakes. We could pick them up though. Yeah, that’ll work.
Maybe she’d like Italian instead, or maybe she’d hate both and wants takeout.
“Sorry about that. You still there? Coop?” Her voice stops me from spiraling over our date and replanning the entire thing. “I was cleaning up my lab.”
Sutton rambles on about it.
Why is her talking nerdy to me turning me on right now? I’ve always admired her brain, found it hot in recent years.
“Nerdy?” She laughs.
I must have said that out loud. I roll with it. “Truthfully, any way you talk to me usually does it.”
“Even when I’m being mean to you,” she challenges my piece of truth.
“You mean bratty. You were never mean.” A smirk curls at the corners of my mouth. “But yeah, Dave, even then. You might have tried to be mean, but it never worked.”
“What did it do instead? Make you want me more?”
“Yes,” I reply pointedly. “I want to take you out on a date.”
“Really?” Her voice jumps up an octave.
“Don’t sound so surprised. People who like each other do that.”
“I also like Jaxon and Beckett. I’m not going on dates with them.” There’s her teasing, borderline bratty, tone.
“Stop making this difficult. Will you go on a date with me?” I ask this time, and then add, “Please.”
Sutton giggles, and I know it’s accompanied by a fluttering eye roll. “Yes, I’d love to go on a date with you. When is this date?”
“Tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“What if I wasn’t free?”
“According to your color-coded fridge calendar, you are.”
When I pullinto the parking lot of the apartment complex, I spot someone in the entryway. I park and sprint to the door. Sneak in as they are leaving.
