“For a second there I thought you were telling me you were the frog because you were hoping I’d kiss you.” Shewinked cheekily at him. “Or maybe that’s why you told me you are a SEAL.”
“I’ve mostly retired,” he reminded her.
“Sure, you have,” she started to say, then shook her head. “That’s a tomorrow conversation. I think you are just trying to distract me from asking what your favorite item of clothing is.”
He was relieved their evening didn’t change from one of getting to know each other to one of war or what he’d done in the past. “Oh, you do, do you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not sure what my favorite item is,” he admitted. “It depends on what I’m doing. My clothes aren’t fashion statements, but something I wear to do a job.”
“That’s kinda sad. If you were just chilling for a day, what do you wear?”
“Depends on what I’m doing.” He wasn’t quite sure he understood the question. “If I’m surfing, I wear shorts. If I’m going to the range, then whatever. Clothes serve a purpose.”
“That’s just weird to me.”
He totally understood why it would be. “I know.”
She plucked a flower which grew on the edge of the blanket and twirled it between her forefingers. “But if we all had the same opinions, life would be boring.”
“Truth.”
Back and forth they went, learning all the little things about each other.
Her favorite taste—salty Finnish licorice.
His—Lemon cheesecake, as saying her would be corny and they weren’t at that point yet.
Her favorite smell—puppy breath.
The memory of her body wash engulfing him in the shower swamped him—“Apple pie.”
“We’re running out of our favorite things.” The center ofher forehead furrowed as she thought. “What car were you driving when you got your license?”
“An old blue Ford pickup truck.” He’d worked his ass off to earn cash to buy that truck. Selling it had gutted him. Even though it had been years, he could still remember every second of that day. “I sold it to your mom.”
“You’re shitting me?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I knew I recognized your mom’s voice when you were talking to her on the phone. It drove me nuts trying to figure out where I knew her from. It was more than we just lived in the same town. I had Remi look her up for me. I remember you too. You came with her the day she bought my truck.”
“You do?”
He wasn’t sure if he was confusing her or scaring her. “Yeah. You had cute pigtails.” He caught a lock of her hair in his fingers and gave it a gentle tug, much like he had that day so long ago.
“Wait.” The tug on her hair clearly rattled the memory loose in Jorja’s mind. “You bought all my Girl Scout cookies?”
“I did.” He hadn’t meant to, but the other Girl Scouts who’d been selling their cookies in the same parking lot where he and her mom had done the deal for his truck had been teasing her for not having sold any cookies yet. He’d seen the tears welling up in her eyes, and as kicking Girl Scouts in the rear end would have earn him a jail sentence, he’d done the only other option which had popped into his head and bought every single cookie she had at her table.
“Wow. Um— than?—”
He put one finger to her lips. “Don’t. You don’t have to thank me. Especially as it kinda makes me feel like a dirty old man now, for thinking how cute you were.” He hadn’t meant to say that bit out loud.
“Stop it.” She poked him in the side. “You are only, what, five or six years older than me?”
“Hah, try more like ten.”
“It just tells me even as a kid, you had a good heart.”
