“What’d you do?”
“Oh, um. I might have uh, clipped my microphone onto him while he was monologuing,” she admits sheepishly. “It was pretty bad, I don’t know if there’s damage control left for him to do.”
I blink at her.
“And then I might have um, thrown some stuff at him, there was an explosion, I don’t know if you remember that part? Adrianna said I probably shouldn’t admit to the property damage, so just to be clear, I’m not.” She sighs, and I can’t believe I missed all that being non-lucid in the tube.
“Did you know you’re hot? Like really fucking hot?” I ask weakly, unable to come up with a more substantial reply.
She rolls her eyes. “I did, actually. Before I did the weathercast, I used to post my Pilates routines online, and I got a lot of thirsty comments.”
“Yeah, some of them are probably from me. I had notifications set up so whenever you posted a video—” I stop myself there, but it’s still too late.
She levels a look at me like that might be the weird thing that makes us awkwardly leave and never talk to each other again. I grimace, shrugging it off. She knew I was like this.
Glancing around the street one more time, I finally ask the question I’ve been avoiding. “So, if you don’t know where Clayton is, why’d you say you were meeting him?”
Lacey purses her lips together and looks away, delicately tucking some of her askew curls back behind her ear. I catch the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “When did I say that?”
“You said you were meeting your boyfriend here.”
Lacey blinks back at me with her long eyelashes and her innocent doe eyes like she has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Then she fucking smiles in that diabolically evil way she does that makes me absolutely helpless to her.
Before I can put together any kind of question, a waiter steps outside and hands us menus. He places those rolled up napkin and utensils bundles between us, then glances at me and seems a little lost for a moment.
“Uh, could we get a couple of waters? Thanks,” Lacey says, redirecting his attention. He nods and leaves.
Somewhere between unbundling the napkin and looking at the flickering candle on the table between us, it occurs to me how much like a date this looks. There’s even a little bundle of flowers on the third chair that I had not noticed before.
“Oh, they usually have really good specials, I need to ask him about those when he comes back,” Lacey says as she flips over the menu and scans it. She reaches out and threads her fingers through mine, toying with my thumb absently while she reads the menu.
Hold the fuck up.
This girl has set me up. We’re on a whole ass date.
I sit back and cover my mouth, and as much of my face as I can with a hand, my cheeks heating up. That’s actually reallyfucking cute. I’ve been tricked. Snafued. I fell right into her trap. Oh, she can handle me any time.
“You said something a while back about never being invited out for dinner before, so...” She shrugs a little, then leans forward, placing her chin in her palm. “We can go someplace nicer next time, if you like. But I didn’t want to ambush you with some place that had a dress code.”
Was I upset about something?
Lacey’s dark brown eyes glint mischievously, her smile infectious. I turn her hand over in mine, tracing wandering outlines over the shapes in her palm.
Almost automatically, I lean in to murmur, “You called me your boyfriend on live TV?”
“A little premature, maybe. It’s quicker than saying, ‘that guy it’s kind of complicated with,’ ” she whispers back, like we’re sharing a secret. I’m a little bit hoping she’ll do it again, just for me to hear it. There’s a rosy Saturday in the red of her lower lip. Just a second ago I couldn’t imagine a world where it would be possible, much less that easy. I desperately, deeply, truly, madly and a few more adverbs love this girl.
She pulls away just as I’m thinking about kissing her.
“Not to like, corner you with that, if you’re not ok with it, I mean,” she mumbles, her eyes on her lap. “You don’t have to—”
“Lacey—”
She pushes on, eyes shuttered. “You mean a lot to me. I know I haven’t been doing a good job of showing that. I haven’t felt like I could be wrong safely in a long time. I’ve been sitting on the defensive for so long it’s become my knee-jerk reaction,and...it’s not the person I want to be. I like myself better when I’m with you. I feel like I have room to try to be better.”
Her fingers are still tangled with mine as she sits back in her chair, taking in a deep breath after unloading all her thoughts at once. Her eyes flick to me, a little guarded after spilling her heart all over the table.
It’s a lot to take in. Honestly I was so taken by finding out we’d finally gone on our first real date, I’d forgotten anything I might have still begrudged her.
