Smiling has never been this easy. “That shirt too warm?”
She’s in a long-sleeved white blouse that hides her tattoos and short jean shorts that show off her legs, and I suddenly wonder if we can order takeout to a campsite.
“No, you did good,” she tells me. “It’s nice and lightweight. You ready for dinner? I could eat as much as Simon’s boys usually do combined. And if you don’t know anything about thirteen-year-old boys, trust me when I say it’s a lot.”
I hold out a hand.
She grabs it and pulls me up, and I accidentally-on-purpose stop too close to her so I can sniff her shampoo and slip my arms around her waist and hug her tightly. “You smell amazing.”
“You feel amazing.”
Yeah.
I’m absolutely not letting her go. I don’t care how close she lives to Manhattan. I don’t care that my parents will be able to track me down and yell at me after the board meeting next week.
Daph’s worth it.
Her stomach growls loudly. “Take me to food.”
“Okay, okay. Food for you.”
She drives, grinning the whole way. “I found the best place,” she tells me as we pull into the parking lot of what looks like an Old West saloon in a strip mall in the middle of the nearest town. “They have a mechanical bullandkaraoke.”
“Are you—of course you’re serious.” I knew about the karaoke.
I did not know about the mechanical bull.
She giggles. “Excited?”
“Hell, yes.”
I’ll strip her naked in the tent later.
For now—yeah.
This is epic.
It’s not quite seven, so the sun’s still out, but inside, you wouldn’t guess. No windows. Wanted posters are intermixed with dollar bills stapled to the walls and ceiling. The bar itself looks like it hasn’t been fully cleaned in several decades. The floor longer. Our table wobbles more than the drunk guy at the end of the bar, and our server is in a cowboy hat.
“How did you find this place?” I ask Daphne over the sounds of someone singing karaoke so badly that I suddenly have far more faith in my ability to do the same.
“The magic of the internet.”
“If I searchedfun place to go for dinner, my phone would’ve steered me to a chain restaurant.”
“We are definitely training your search results better. Now. What song are you singing first? And don’t tell me that Waverly Sweet one we were singing in the car earlier. I don’t want you to ever find out what the real lyrics are. I like yours better.”
I lean across the table and kiss her.
Can’t help myself.
Especially when kissing her earns me one of those broad, wide, uninhibited smiles that makes me feel like life truly can be simple.
Easy.
Experienced through the joy of the little things like the smile of the woman you love.
“Or we can try out the mechanical bull first,” she says.
