After locking up, I wandered over to my car. Danny had taken to parking his Mustang beside mine in the employee lot behind the store. This evening he’d backed his car into the space beside mine so the driver’s doors were together.
In the few short weeks since football camp had started, he’d made a point of putting us back on familiar territory—except for the part where he created opportunities to touch me. Somehow there was a brush of his bare forearm over mine as I wiped down counters, or our fingers would touch when I handed him his usual drink, or his arm would ghost over my shoulders if we sat together at a table before my coworkers clocked out. Tonight as we headed to our cars, he bumped my shoulder with his and then continued walking beside me with only a thin cushion of air separating us. My skin rippled in anticipation of the next brush of his skin, forcing me to struggle to concentrate on his words.
“You ever going to invite me over to your place?”
“Are you going to invite me to yours?” I countered as I leaned against my car door, deliberately putting some space between us.
“Later, when I know my roommates better.”
Something in his tone drew my attention to his face. Though fleeting, the shadow I saw there made me wonder.
“I have a final to study for this week. If you had something to study too, we could study together, but since you don’t—” I shrugged. “Guess you need to go home and get to know your roommates better.”
“School’s about to start, and we’ve hardly spent any time together.” The pouty look on his handsome face did funny things to my insides.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I smirked. “Yeah. Adulting does have some downsides.”
“T...” He sounded the letter out to three syllables.
“Danny...” I mimicked his delivery.
“Can I at least take you for an ice cream? I found a place that serves dipped cones—chocolate, strawberry, caramel. Mmm.” He closed his eyes in rapture, but when he opened them, something wicked danced in their heated silver-gray depths. Trying to figure out why he insisted on turning on the flirt with me was driving me to distraction.
Yet the temptation of a dipped cone had me wavering. Damn. He knew me so well.
“Come on, T. You have time for an ice cream.”
Blowing a breath at my bangs, I said, “Fine. I’ll grab an ice cream with you, but only for half an hour. I need to study tonight because I work a double after class tomorrow.”
When I turned to key myself into my car, his big, warm hand on my arm stayed me.
“I’ll drive.”
Glancing up at him—why did he insist on standing so close?—I said, “Yeah. Me too. I’ll follow you.”
“Not what I meant, Taryn. If you’re only giving me thirty minutes, I want them all. I’ll drop you off back here afterward. Promise.”
The intensity in his words played at odds with his flirty smile, but it was the almost imperceptible squeeze of his hand on my arm that tugged the acquiescing sigh from my chest.
“Fine.” I shoved my keys into the pocket of my shorts and stepped around him to circle the front of his car. “But I really have to head home in half an hour.”
With a triumphant grin, he slid into the driver’s seat and reached across the console to unlock the passenger door. When I closed myself inside his car with him I had to work hard not to suck in a long breath of Danny-scented air. The interior smelled of leather, sandalwood, and something clean that was uniquely him. As always his scent drew me to him, at once making me feel safe and leaving a heaviness low in my belly that I resolutely ignored as I buckled myself in.
“I didn’t know any place in town offered dipped cones. Must be new. How did you discover it?” I asked as he put the car in gear and eased us out of the parking lot.
“Bax knows all the good places in town. He turned me onto it. Wait till you see. They swirl the cones and everything. The coating is that perfect crispiness that cracks when you bite it then melts in your mouth with the ice cream.” His eyes twinkled as he kissed his fingers off his lips. “Mwah! Perfection.”
With a laugh, I said, “Easy there, tiger. Keep your focus on the road.”
The ice-cream shop was a hole-in-the-wall between a popular downtown bar and a specialty boutique selling antique rugs and collectibles. Since I rarely came downtown and only ever spent time in the bar at night after the other downtown shops had closed, I’d never noticed the ice-cream store before. Its cute interior gave off the impression of a turn-of-the-century soda fountain, with its row of round metal-legged tables for two tucked along a dark wood wall opposite a long glass case filled with a variety of pastries that made my mouth water.
Ignoring them, Danny clasped my hand and led me to the opposite end of the room where an older man wearing a red-and-white striped apron and a matching old-timey hat, the fabric creased longways from his forehead to the back of his head, stood behind a part of the case housing gallons of ice cream. Behind him a stainless-steel machine with a long handle and two spigots hummed. A stack of cones waited on the counter beside it. Sunken into that same counter were three round vats with stainless-steel covers.
“What size cone do you want?” Danny asked as we stepped in front of the man.
“Medium.”
“We’d like two medium dipped cones, please,” he said.
