He gave a playful shudder. “My teeth still hurt, but that just means more for you.”
“I will fall gallantly on my sword.” She took the seat that he indicated that she should take, then gratefully accepted the donut and took a hearty, delicious bite.
He took an equally hearty bite of the pecan bun. For a moment, they just chewed in silence. Diana had no doubt that they looked silly but it was…
Nice. It was just so nice.
“Anyway,” Anthony said with a chuckle as he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “I was just hoping that I could give you a good memory to take away from that…” He hesitated. “Date?”
She grimaced. “First and last date,” she said. “And it is very, very sweet of you to offer treats, but I’m afraid that nothing will ever dim the horror of that date.”
He gave her a comical expression of dismay that she suspected was a hit with the ten-year-old set.
It was, alas, a hit with the thirty-eight-year-old set too, as far as she was concerned.
“That bad?”
“It depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“On how much you like talking about fish guts.”
His eyebrows rose. “Um. Not very much, I have to admit.”
“I’m right there with you,” she said, taking another, daintier bite of her donut. “It’s definitely not a talk that goes well with food.”
“Yeah. Ick.”
She grinned. “That’s exactly what Eleanor said.”
“She sounds like a good friend,” he commented.
“Oh, absolutely.” Diana didn’t even need to hesitate. “I have a great group of friends, even if I amseriouslyquestioning their judgment in encouraging me to try online dating.”
He ran a hand through his hair. It left her unable to avoid noticing that he had really nice hair. The silver at his temples made him look really distinguished.
“Some of my friends back in Cleveland encouraged me to try online dating a little while back,” he said. “I wasn’t ready to get back into things yet, but your experiences aren’t exactly warming me up to the idea either.”
She tried to look cheerful and upbeat, but, judging by his laugh, it definitely came off as a wince.
“Yikes,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “It’s mostly been a disaster. But I spent so long focused on building up my business that I never really had time to dedicate to finding my person, you know? And that’s something I’ve always wanted. A family. And… and I am giving yousomany details.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “After my wife died, I found that mentioning being a widower makes everyone immediately get squirrely.”
“I’m really sorry for your loss,” she said.
He gave her a small, sad smile. “Thank you. I’ve done a lot of healing, and obviously I don’t regret any of it, but losing Shannon was really hard. Cleveland ended up having too many hard memories for Eloise and me, so we decided that a fresh start was in order.”
“Well, you obviously know her way better than I do, but from what I can tell, she’s an incredible kid,” Diana said. “And not just because she has a great taste in books.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I think moving was absolutely the right choice. She seems to be opening up a lot here. She’s already making new friends, and everyone in town has been so welcoming.”
“Please be advised that people have been fully holding back,” Diana said, pointing at him with the remaining half of herdonut. “They are trying to pretend that they’re normal. It’s a thin façade, though. The longer this goes on, the more you’re going to realize we’re a bunch of super-welcoming weirdos.”
“Gosh, how awful of you,” he deadpanned.
