“So you just lock lips with every woman who closes her eyes?” she teased.
“When they do it the way you did, yes,” he said back without missing a beat. He could still feel the ghosts of her hands on the sides of his face, see the needful way she’d gazed at him, picture the way her eyes had drifted closed and her mouth had opened slightly.
Yes, she’d been begging him to kiss her, and Adam had wanted to. So he had.
She smiled at him. “I’ve never been kissed before the first date.”
“We can count the coffee and cowboy hat as a date, if that makes things better for you.” He smiledat her. “Because I don’t feel bad about kissing you. I’d do it again and again in the same situation.”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “Again and again?”
“Yes,” Adam said simply. “I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while. Maybe the kissing was bad? If so, I can accept that. We don’t have to get brunch this weekend.”
“I want to get brunch this weekend.”
“So the kissing wasn’t bad,” he stated.
Joey grinned at him. “I mean, it wasn’tthatbad.” She nudged him with her shoulder and gave a light laugh. Adam thought it sounded like soft spring rain, and he let his feeling flow through him freely.
And he liked this woman a whole lot.
“You know what would be amazing?” he asked. Joey raised her eyebrows at him. “Popcorn. A movie and popcorn, while the storm rages around us.”
The moment he said that, something popped in the house. Joey yelped; the lights went out; Adam pulled in a breath and held it.
Someone else yelled from somewhere in the house, but for some reason, Adam couldn’t tell where the sound had come from.
“I’m right here, Mom,” Joey said. She moved beside him, and the flashlight on her phone illuminated the room in the next moment. “The generator will come on in a minute.” She got up and went into the kitchen.
Adam followed her, mostly because he wanted to be near her—and he wanted to be helpful too.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Joey said. “Then you can plug in your phone and watch a show and not have to navigate the house in the dark.” She helped her mother stand from the recliner, and Adam moved to her other side.
“I’m okay,” Lauren said, and Adam stayed out of the way. He told himself not to overstep, that helping Joey wasn’t exactly the same as helping her mother. He let Joey shuffle out of the kitchen, and to help, he cleaned up his dishes and the pot pies for a second time.
He’d just set his bowl in the dishwasher when the lights flared back on, the generator kicking in the way Joey said it would. He turned off all the lights he could and still see, because he saw no reason to use more energy than necessary.
He returned to the couch, and while it wasn’t the most comfortable item of furniture he’d ever sat on, it would be fine for a single evening. He leaned back and sighed as his eyes closed, the exhaustion of the day weighing on his shoulders.
A yawn stretched through him, but he knew it wasn’t anywhere near late enough for him to actually lie down and go to sleep. It took Joey several more long minutes before she rejoined him on the couch, a sigh slipping through her lips as she did.
“They’re both settled in their rooms,” she said, leaning back against the couch beside him.
“Is it time for bed then?” Adam grinned and turned his head to look at her. The dim light he’d left on over the stovein the kitchen barely haloed her, and he found her incredibly beautiful.
“It’s not even seven o’clock.”
“It feels later,” he said. “It got dark so early.”
“And it’s not even really winter yet.” Joey flashed him a smile, and Adam lifted his arm and drew her into his chest.
“Maybe we can just sit in the dark and tell each other secrets,” he murmured.
“Secrets?” Joey kept her voice low too. “I don’t think I have too many of those.”
“I’ve got a few.”
She snuggled closer. “Go on, then, if you’re so keen to spill secrets in the dark.”
