Still, Tolly looks at me like I’m the most beautiful man he’s ever met.
I’m not surprised that he asked to take me to dinner tonight, nor that he’s refused to label this as a date. I just wish there was a way to calm his nerves. As we pull into the Broken Oak’s parking lot, I decide a little teasing might do the trick.
Elbowing him, I gesture to the truck’s massive interior. “The only thing bigger than this truck is your name.”
“True,” he admits with a half-smile as he pulls into a spot out by a tree. “But do you actually know my full name?”
Of course I do—it’s the first thing I memorized about you, right after the color of your eyes.
“Lord Ptolemy James Filbert Llewellyn Middleton III of West Shropshire,” I rattle off, shaking my head. “Your name is Egyptian, German, Welsh, and English. Make it make sense.”
He snorts in his proper British way, then turns to me. “The fancy names are always meant to make the peasants feel less than, as though the nobility are somehow more, even in our names,” he explains, shaking his head.
He once told me that it took a single conversation with a homeless man to turn his sense of nobility on its head.
“What do your parents think of the fact that your friends call you Tolly?”
“They don’t like to think of my life outside of the manor walls at all. Unless I’m bringing an appropriate lady around to court, of course.”
“Then they are setting themselves up for disappointment.” I shake my head. “Ay,corazon.”
His slight exhale reminds me that he speaks Spanish pretty well and that he knows I’ve just called himheart.
“You have no idea. They like to act as though I have a few wild oats to sew, and therefore the gender of the person I’m sewing them with doesn’t matter.”
“To be fair, that sounds rather progressive.”
He lets out a tired sound. “Deceptively so.”
I think of the way my mom’s voice rang out when Tolly appeared on our front porch, how she lavishes love and kindness on him whenever she sees him because that’s how she treats everyone who is important to us.
And Tolly is important to us. To me.
Before the silence gets too heavy, I nudge him with my elbow, hoping to steer the conversation back to lighter fare. “Serious question: are the English okay? I looked it up and West Shropshire is a region south of Manchester, which is well north andeastof Shropshire County. Explainthat.”
“You looked me up?” he asks, his cheeks flushing.
“Of course I did,” I say, taking his hand. “You’ve been wonderful to us. I wanted to know more about where you come from. Though… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the cardinal directions make no sense when your language dictates thatI’ll,aisle, andisleare all pronounced exactly the same way.”
His flush deepens. “We English like to keep the rest of the world on their toes. If I explain how our system of directions work, the king will order my immediate removal and you’ll never see me again.”
“Can’t have that now, can we?” I say, sending him a wink.
“Absolutely not,” he says, then squeezes my hand. “Wait here. Let me help you climb down from this monster.”
I let him help me, even though I don’t need it. Once on solid ground, I take his arm as we wind our way over to the Broken Oak.
Oliver, owner of our favorite restaurant-slash-bar, notes the contact as he gestures for us to follow him into the main dining room. Tolly places his hand on my lower back as we follow Oliver to our table, and it’s warm and steady.
We sit and Oliver takes our drink order, but I’m too focused on Tolly to pay attention to the specials.
“…and for dessert, spotted dick.”
That startles a laugh out of me and Tolly shakes his head, looking at me like I’m some kind of miracle. We order our entrees and Tolly gets the spotted dick to share after. We make jokes and I sit on my hands to prevent myself from fixing the silly bit of hair poking up from his normally perfect locks.
“You haven’t mentioned my shoes,” he says, sliding his foot from under the table.
“Huh?” I ask, slightly lost in him.
