A startled laugh escaped me. “God, yes. It’s disgusting.”
“You drank like fourteen glasses last Tuesday.”
“You were wearing that blue shirt,” I said. “The one that matches your eyes. I would’ve drunk motor oil if it meant you’d keep coming back to the table.”
Something shifted in her expression. The wariness was still there, but underneath it, I saw something else. Hope, maybe. Or the beginning of belief.
“That’s…” She shook her head slowly. “That’s the dumbest, sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged, feeling the tension in my chest start to ease. “I’m not known for my smooth moves. Just ask the guys. They’ve been giving me hell about you since day one.”
“Wait.” Her eyes widened. “That’s what they were teasing you about? At the table? When Conner said you were going to choke?”
I nodded, feeling my face heat. “They’ve been trying to get me to talk to you for weeks. Kept saying I was hopeless. Briggs started a bet on how long it would take me to finally make a move.”
“Oh my god.” She covered her mouth with her hand, but I could see her lips curving underneath. “I thought they were making fun of you fornotbeing interested. I thought the joke was that you’d never go for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped her hand, and I could see the vulnerability in her eyes now. “The small-town server. The girl everyone knows but nobody really sees. You could have anyone. I figured I wasn’t even on your radar.”
“Gabby.” I leaned closer without thinking, drawn to her like gravity. “You’re theonlything on my radar. You have been since the night I walked into that roadhouse and you smiled at me like I mattered.”
Her breath caught. I watched her throat move as she swallowed.
“Mason...”
“I know this is crazy.” I kept my voice low, steady, even though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “I know we barely know each other. But I’ve been wanting to know you for a full week, and I’ve been too chickenshit to do anything about it. So if you want me to back off, I will. We can sit here in silence until the guys show up, and I’ll never mention this again.”
I made myself hold her gaze.
“But if there’s any chance—anychance—that you might feel something too, then I’d really like to spend this hour getting to know you. For real this time. No running away.”
The seconds stretched out. Snow ticked against the windows. The heater hummed.
Then Gabby reached over and put her hand on mine. “Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” A small smile tugged at her lips. “Let’s get to know each other. But you have to actuallytalkthis time. Full sentences. No grunting.”
The relief that washed through me was almost dizzying. “I can do that.”
“Good.” She turned her hand over, lacing her fingers through mine. Her palm was warm and soft, and the simple touch sent electricity up my arm. “So. Mason. Tell me something about yourself that you’ve never told anyone else.”
I looked at our joined hands, then back at her face—the curious tilt of her head, the warmth in her eyes, the way she was looking at me like I was worth knowing.
For the first time since I met her, the words came easy.
3
GABBY
His hand was warm. That was the first coherent thought I had after everything he’d said—after the sweet tea confession and the shift switches and the way he’d looked at me when he said I was theonlything on his radar.
Mason’s hand was warm and big and wrapped around mine like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.
I’d asked him to tell me something he’d never told anyone else. It was a test, sort of. If he gave me some generic answer—I’m afraid of spidersorI cried duringMarley & Me—I’d know this was just talk. Just a guy saying what he thought I wanted to hear because we were stuck together and he was bored.
