“Fine.” He glanced away, and I stole another kiss from his pouty mouth before I grabbed my gear from a nearby bench. We headed out into the late-afternoon sunshine. He held the steel door for me, and I snorted as he wrinkled his nose in my direction. The man who’d first come to stay with me hadn’t been playful at all—hell, I might’ve thought there was something wrong with him if he’d acted this way then. I was still learning there was more to Peter than I’d seen. I was happy with every piece of himself he showed me.
“I’m so lucky,” I said.
He sighed and shook his head at me, and I laughed.
“You know there are a lot of people getting rounded up,” Peter said quietly. “I’m just not sure how happy I should be yet. It’s part of why I haven’t… wanted to talk about it. We might be going from the pan to the fire.”
“That’s fair,” I said, but then let the subject drop as I opened the passenger door of the Jeep for him. “Rowdy called me while you were over there yelling at the kids.”
He glanced at me. “What’d he say?”
“Cops told him to lay low, and he has the same thoughts you do, that there might be more trouble coming. Black’s criminal trial will be starting sometime in the next month or two, and they expect shit to hit the fan. We’ll need to be alert when we’re in the city. Maybe everywhere.”
Peter rested his head back against the seat and nodded. “Makes sense.” He didn’t seem like he was in a talkative mood now, so I closed his door for him and went around to get behind the wheel. The ride home didn’t take too long because the gym was only about fifteen minutes from my place. We’d started showering together recently, but tonight I stopped instead of following him in. He turned to frown at me as he stripped off his tank top, letting me get a good look at his tight abs and mouthwatering pink nipples.
“You don’t want to come in with me?” He tilted his head, and I groaned and slid my gaze down his tight stomach to his trim hips. There was a bulge waiting for me and he wasn’t shy about grabbing his dick. I licked my lips. “Please?”
“No, I… uh.” I blew out a long breath and laughed. “So you’re going to shower, and then I am. We’re going to get ready and go out. Get something nice on.”
“Nice? What do you mean? How nice?” He sounded like I’d tossed hot water in his face, and I was quick to glance back up at his wide, pretty eyes. He didn’t like to let me know when he was scared, but I thought maybe that’s what this happened to be—fear. We hadn’t changed our routine for a while now.
“Anything not a T-shirt or workout gear will do. Clean jeans.”
He scowled but turned his back on me. I closed the door to keep from getting sidetracked. He deserved to be treated like my boyfriend. I didn’t want to get into a routine that meant I didn’t show him how excited I was to have him here, and now that he was finally feeling better, I wanted to do something special with him. It was difficult to come up with ideas, though, because a lot of what I might have normally done would have involved showing him off at a bar or dancing and drinking… none of which would work. He still had a disgruntled frown when I passed him on the way into the bathroom, but he’d shaved clean, which was nice, and he smelled good enough to eat.
When we were both dressed in clean button-downs and jeans, I drove us to my surprise date spot, which was nearby and had an open-air restaurant people drove all the way from New Gothenburg to visit. Peter wore a small frown until I pulled the Jeep into the parking lot and cut the engine.
It was getting late and the sun was going down. Clouds in the purpling sky glowed golden and red as if they contained an internal fire. The patio where customers were seated at little metal tables with curlicue legs had bare bulbs strung on poles around the border and on wires above the dining area. The eatery didn’t look anything except romantic. My gut was in a knot as I waited for some sort of reaction from Peter—even anger. The sign near the open gate that led to the seats was shaped like a large wine bottle with Sandy Lane Winery written across it in sparkly gold cursive. He sent me a surprised glance but didn’t comment.
My gut dropped to my toes and I wiped my palms on my jeans. “I’m not drinking here. It just has good food.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, squinting out the windshield.
“Will the fact that there’s alcohol on the menu be a deal breaker?”
He stared out the window for a bit longer, then looked back with a tiny smile. “No.”
Dread coiled around my throat as we got out and walked over together. I couldn’t tell from his expression what was going through his head. A man in a purple apron seated us and went through a spiel about the wines neither of us listened to before I ordered water and Peter ordered iced tea. The man huffed as he left, and I had to laugh.
“People probably order wine a lot.” Peter pointed at our neighboring tables and most had two or three bottles sitting in the middle. We were awkward as we stared at each other, and I was beginning to regret springing this on him when he took a deep breath and blasted me with a bright smile.
“Uh….” I didn’t know how to get us started.
“I’ve never done anything like this.”
“No?” Relief rolled over me in a wave and I dropped back against my chair.
“No.” He fiddled with his silverware, twisting the spoon this way and that.
My mind blanked. “You said you were married.”
He nodded and frowned. “Yeah.”
“Sorry I brought it up.”
He glanced up and the raw emotion in his gaze had me transfixed. “Don’t be. I feel like I wasn’t doing anything except taking up oxygen until I met you. Now I’m really living. Can’t explain it.” He finally picked up the spoon and set it on his plate. He glared at the silverware.
I reached across the table and rested my hand, palm up, on the white tablecloth. “We haven’t said it in a while.”
