“Havecoffee with me.”
Itore my eyes from his body and glued them to his face. “What?” In my head theword was a screech, a surprised yelp. But in reality, it left my mouth on awhisper.
“Havecoffee with me,” he repeated. “And you can have Saturday off.”
“Areyou blackmailing me to go on a date with you?”
“Whosaid anything about a date? It’s coffee.”
“Ihaven’t gone on a d—” I cleared my throat and started that sentence over. “Ihaven’t gone out for coffee in a long time.”
Theother half of his mouth joined the first in an amused smile. “Does that make ita policy for you now? You’re anti-coffee?”
“I’mnot anti-coffee. I’m definitely pro-coffee. I just usually drink it alone.”
“That’scool,” he laughed. “I usually drink it alone too.”
Iblinked at him.
He shuffledback a few steps to put some distance between us. “One time we can do ittogether. It’s not a big deal.”
Myeyebrows scrunched together of their own volition. “It’s kind of a big deal.”
Heshook his head. “How about tomorrow?”
“You’reasking for payment way in advance.”
Heshrugged. “I’m making sure you don’t have any opportunity to renege on yourpart of the deal.”
Irubbed my temples with my forefingers. “Tomorrow’s Tuesday.”
“And?”His smile was still in place. He knew exactly what day it was.
“Don’tyou go to the Morning Market on Tuesday?”
“Oh,right,” he said. “We can meet there. The coffee’s good.”
“You’velost your damn mind.”
Hissmile brightened. “Maybe.” Then he turned around and called over his shoulder,“Now get back to work before I fire you.”
Evenafter all that flirty banter… even after a scheduled date… I still believed hewould fire me.
Thatmade me the dumbest person in the world for being secretly excited about havingcoffee with him at the farmer’s market tomorrow morning.
Chapter Fourteen
He’dtexted last night and told me to meet him at seven this morning. My eyes werebarely open this early. The sun was barely awake. It felt like neither of uswanted to be here, yet… here we were. Doing our part to give Wyatt what hewanted.
AlthoughI supposed most of the people on this side of the world wanted the sun to rise.It wasn’t only Wyatt.
Iyawned as I stumbled my way from the gravel parking lot to where he stood nextto a coffee stand. I knew this market well. I had shopped it often, but itlooked different this morning. Maybe it was the softer, earlier light than Iwas used to. Or maybe it was the start of the new season as we rolled closer tosummer.
Mostly,I thought it was Wyatt. I had never been here with a man before, let alone aman like Wyatt. Dillon and I often came here Wednesday mornings. And there werea few times during Killian’s reign atLilouwhen he’dsent me in his place if Wyatt hadn’t been able to go for him for whateverreason.
I’dbrought Molly here twice when she’d wanted to surprise Ezra by cooking for him.Both times had ended in disaster. She’d made me promise to never bring heragain, no matter how ambitious Pinterest made her.
Wyattheld out a to-go cup of coffee with that aggravating half smile lifting oneside of his mouth and the sun rising behind him. A shiver trickled down myspine and I decided it was worth getting up early this morning to see this—Wyattlike this, gentle, kind… sweet.
