“I’d like that,” he said. “Do you want to be seen in public with me?”
She frowned. “Don’t do that. It’s a major turnoff.”
He leaned down close to her like he’d been earlier when they were practicing the Heimlich maneuver. “Nothing you can do will turn me off,” he whispered against her cheek. “But in this case, I meant it more like you’re well known and I feel you don’t like to be seen out with a man until you’re ready.”
Her head went side to side, telling him he was right on that call.
Showing up at his bar for a drink wasn’t anything. Talking to him here was not either.
But a dinner with the two of them at a table alone, she could be noticed.
“You’re not wrong,” she said. “Since you know where I live and have been in my building—maybe even at my door—how about I cook you dinner one night? We can talk. Catch up on our lives.”
“You know just about everything in my life,” he said.
“I doubt anyone knows it all,” she said. “Give me your phone.”
He dropped the bag by the door, pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it over after he unlocked it.
He heard her phone buzz in her purse and assumed she’d sent herself a text from his.
“Did you put it in my contacts?”
“Nope. You can do that. Maybe you’ll want to call me something other than my name. You know, like Princess.”
He stared at her for a minute, then it hit him. “Damn. You remember that?”
“I don’t forget much,” she said.
He flipped the light and walked out with her. No way was he letting her go with that statement like she’d done the other night.
“You like to have the last word, don’t you?”
Someone else would lock the community center where the training was held.
“Comes from having two brothers,” she said.
Which reminded him, he knew her brother Gabe and her father, Jim. He’d known them for a few years. Even knew the situation behind the buildings her family owned with the Fierces, Kennedys, and Olsons.
He’d met them all at one point or another.
She had deep roots in this area. Or was connected to many that did.
All the more reason she might not be one of those people who liked to be seen out on a random date.
It’s not as if he was going to assume it was anything more than that.
“Then the next step is in your hands since you seem to make more of them. Or don’t you like that?”
Her eyes glazed over as if she was in deep thought. Or troubled thoughts.
“This one is yours. You’ve got a tighter schedule than I do. I’ll make myself available if you can.”
He smiled. “I like a woman who is flexible.”
“In more ways than one. Got it,” she said, laughing.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
