“Two minutes.”
“It must have been bizarre to learn that everyone on earth was following your story.”
“Yeah. I went into that building a forgotten, discarded kid. I came out a celebrity.”
Throughout the remainder of their dinner, Sebastian watched her with the kind of concentration that seemed to miss nothing.He asked their server for more water even before her glass was empty. When she looked around, wondering where the restroom was, he told her where it was located before she could ask.
In Leah’s regular daily life, there were always so many thoughts and theories circulating in her head that she often found it challenging to focus fully on a conversation. This was extraordinarily true when she found the subject being discussed less interesting than the things going on in her head.
With Sebastian, conversation was more interesting than her thoughts or theories. He had a curious mind, and he liked to delve deeply into a topic. They discussed heart surgery. They discussed math.
He wasn’t content with the vague information she usually dispensed when people asked about math. He wanted her to explain number theory and combinatorics and why she loved algebra.
He’d topped out with calculus in college, but he remembered it well, and that base gave him an educated vantage point from which to view the landscapes where math had taken her.
On their drive home, the dashboard lights glowed against his hard-cut profile. She caught whiffs of his aftershave. She noted the faint lines across the top of his wrists and the five o’clock shadow beginning to darken his cheeks and jaw.
Tonight’s date had gratified the homely, unpopular nine-year-old inside her to a surprising degree. Until this evening, she hadn’t understood how much that nine-year-old wanted to experience at least one successful, fairy-tale-esque night out.
Dylan’s friends’ cars lined the street outside her house, so Sebastian pulled onto her steep driveway and killed the engine. She stepped out of the car and waited for him on the wide steps that ran parallel to the driveway.
Cool weather wrapped her in a strange stillness. She could see light and vague movement inside her house. But outside, no wind at all. No animal sounds. Even the stars were few tonight, and distant. It was as if God had turned a giant glass bowl upside down and placed it over Misty River.
He stopped a few feet away from her, hands in his pockets, illuminated by the exterior lights mounted on the garage.
She wanted to drown in a Jacuzzi of the feelings he produced in her. Why had she stipulated that they would not kiss tonight? That may have been rash.
“Tell me what I need to do to convince you to see me again tomorrow,” he said.
Tilting her head, she considered how to reply. She’d agreed to go out with him to stop the flood of gifts, but this evening hadn’t felt like a means to an end. It had felt like a luxurious little vacation dropped in the center of her day-to-day life.
She’d do well to recall that her day-to-day life was herreallife. Luxurious little vacations were, by nature, short-lived. “As you know, I’ve never been interested in acquiring a boyfriend. So, in order for you to convince me to see you tomorrow, I simply need you to assure me that you won’t be foisting any nonsensical romantic notions upon me.”
“I will not foist.”
“We are not”—she used air quotes—“dating.”
“Agreed. You’re not commiting to anything except spending more time with me.”
“Spending more time with you doesn’t sound completely repulsive,” she said primly, interlacing her hands in front of her waist.
“Let’s negotiate terms for tomorrow. Where should I take you?”
“Nowhere. Tonight was plenty extravagant enough, thank you.”
“Dinner at my house, then?”
“That’s acceptable.”
“I’ll have food delivered.”
“No, we’ll cook dinner together. It’ll be less expensive, and it’ll give us something to do.”
He gave her a scorching look. “I can think of plenty of things for us to do.”
“We’ll cook together,” she said firmly.
He stepped closer. Her abdomen contracted with longing.
