“Like uh . . .” He couldnotmake his mouth form the worddate, but he was thinking it.
Dawson just laughed. “Rook, you’re getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Uh.” Apparently that was all the vocabulary he had left.
“So neither of us sit in our empty apartments, alright? Isn’t that a good enough reason?” Dawson’s voice was teasing. “You okay with that?”
Cam swallowed hard. “Yeah. For sure. Sounds good. But my truck—”
“Oh jeez, rook. I’ll give you a lift in the morning. We’re coming from the same place. Why are we both driving through this ass Toronto traffic, anyway?”
“Not sure,” Cam said, feeling like his throat was strangling him.
“Well, are you gonna come or not?”
Cam barely stopped his jaw from dropping. “To dinner?” he questioned.
“Yes,to dinner,” Dawson said with exasperation.
Cam nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we can go to dinner.”
He followed Dawson to where he’d parked. New car smell spilled out as he opened the door.
“I don’t suppose you have any ideas on where to go,” Dawson said as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Me? Uh, no. Not really.” Cam was afraid that exposed his ugly habit of hiding in his apartment. But it was also the truth, and it seemed like Dawson might’ve guessed anyway. Hadn’t he just said,so we don’t sit in our empty apartments?
That was as good as calling Cam out for what he’d been doing.
“Me either,” Dawson confessed. “But Aidan sent me a list of suggestions, and I thought we’d start at the top of the list.”
They stopped at a red light and Dawson pulled his phone out of his pocket, and clicked something, hooking it up to the car’s Bluetooth.
“How do you feel about Thai?”
“Thai food?”
Dawson shot him a look as they hit the freeway. “Yes?”
“Um, yeah. I like Thai.” He wasn’t really that familiar with it. Had enjoyed Thai a few times, sure, but someone else had ordered for him. Since coming to Toronto, he’d gotten Chinese food a few times, because that was familiar enough, since there was a small authentic Chinese restaurant in his hometown.
But Thai felt like a step farther, and he never knew what he’d like—or what he should order.
Maybe it would be okay to admit that to Dawson though.
“Rook, if you want something else, we go someplace else,” he said simply. Like it really was no big deal.
“No, no, we can go to Thai. I just . . .” God, to admit how uncultured he waswasembarrassing. “I just don’t have a lot of experience with Thai food.”
There. He’d gotten it out.
Dawson hummed under his breath. Glanced over, zero judgment in his expression. “Not a lot of call for Thai food in Montana?”
“I mean, I’m sure they have it in Missoula or Billings. Bozeman, for sure. But I’m from Phillipsburg, which definitely doesn’t. There was probably one in Helena, where I went to school, but by then . . .” Cam trailed off. He’d said it, sure, but he didn’t really want toexpoundon his naivety or his fear surrounding it.
“You didn’t want to expose yourself as some hick?” Dawson asked kindly.
“Uh, yeah. Exactly.”
