Now, Jason could very easily fix this problem for his little grasshopper by picking her up, but he was following her rules. He only had four days left to convince her that she couldn’t live without him and if that meant that he had to follow her rules to spend time with her, then he was damn well going to follow them. He wasn’t about to give her a reason to break their agreement.
That’s why an hour ago when he woke up to find Haley curled up in his arms, he’d quickly jumped out of bed and put some space between them. She’d looked a little confused and hurt, and he’d almost ignored her rules and pulled her into his arms, but he’d forced himself to keep his head in the game. He’d said good morning and left her alone to take a shower and not joining her had almost killed him.
After lunch, it had taken a little prompting and about a dozen reminders that she’d promised to spend time with him. With a resigned sigh, she’d followed him to the beach. For the first time since he’d wrecked her flowers, things became awkward. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to her. Every time he opened his mouth, he’d force himself to snap it shut before he made this worse.
Several times, he found himself biting back an apology, remembering what his father said, and walked next to her as he tried to figure out what the hell he should say to her. Unfortunately, Haley seemed to be just as uncomfortable as he was. She’d been on the verge of suggesting that they go home again when they came across the little crab hell-bent on attacking her.
“Jason!” Haley gasped, laughing as the crab made a grab for her toes.
Sighing, Jason bent over and plucked the small crab up and took in its buggy eyes. “It’s kind of cute.”
Haley squished up her face adorably. “If you say so.”
He noticed that she didn’t make any moves to take a closer look. In fact, it looked as though she was trying to discreetly step away. Jason bit back a smile as he held it out to her. She squealed, jumped back, and almost fell on her adorable ass.
“Get it away from me!”
“Aw, come on, Haley. He just wants a little kiss,” Jason said, shoving the crab towards her once again. “Just a little kiss.”
Haley giggled even as she ducked out of the way.
“Come on, he likes you!” Jason said, chuckling as he chased after her.
“Go away!” Haley said with that beautiful smile that he loved.
Haley dropped her book as she latched onto Jason’s arm and tried to drag him away.
“That’s false advertisement!” Jason shouted, heading back for the door that they’d been unceremoniously kicked out of ten minutes ago. “The sign says, ‘All you can eat!’”
Thankfully, the last several months in Jason’s company had pretty much cured her problem of embarrassing easily. Otherwise, she’d probably be dying of mortification right about now and wishing for a hole in the ground to open up and swallow her whole as people stopped to gawk at them.
“They were closing,” Haley pointed out.
“That’s no excuse,” Jason bit out, glaring at the waitstaff that watched them nervously from behind closed curtains.
“I think they ran out of food,” Haley said, doing her best not to laugh when he pouted.
“Bastards,” Jason muttered.
“Come on, I’ll let you treat me to a late movie,” she said, tugging on his arm.
He reluctantly allowed her to pull him away, only throwing the occasional look of longing towards the restaurant as they headed across the street. Haley did her best not to roll her eyes. The man was way too obsessed with food, she thought as they stepped into the long line outside the movie theatre as another thought occurred to her, one that actually terrified her a little.
“You never brought me to an all-you-can-eat buffet at home,” she pointed out because now that she thought about it, she was really surprised about that.
It seemed like the perfect place for Jason and his father. They both adored food, which was probably why his parents stopped with just one child. Just the thought of a bunch of little Jason’s running around, eating everything in sight terrified her.
Jason mumbled something.
“What?” Haley asked, tearing her gaze away from the list of movies playing.
“I said, I’ve been banned,” he grumbled unhappily, only to add, “It’s all political,” with a sad shake of his head.
“Uh-huh...and your father?” she asked, having a bad feeling that she already knew what his answer was going to be.
“He’s been banned since 1995,” Jason said with a shrug.
“I see,” Haley said, her lips twitching.
