“I get that,” he said, giving her a sympathetic frown. “I mean, if you were the one person on earth who was never plagued by self-doubt, you’d be powerful beyond measure. Like, scary powerful.”
He pulled a face and she smiled again. She did think he was funny, apparently. Or she was a better actor than his daughter, who sometimes looked at his goofy antics like they totally baffled her.
“But for what it’s worth,” he went on, “that guy was wrong. Wrong and pretty bad at knowing what to say on a date. It makes me wish that I was the one taking you out, instead of this stringof terrible men. That way you could spend time with someone who sees how awesome you are.”
He hadn’t really thought it through before he said it, but when the words came out of his mouth, he was surprised to find that he didn’t regret them at all. The idea of spending more time with Diana…
Yeah, he liked that.
She blinked in surprise, but then a look of sweetly cautious optimism crossed her face.
“You know,” she said, “that’s really not a bad idea. I mean, we have a nice time talking to each other, don’t we?”
“We do,” he agreed easily.
“And we had fun at Anchor Bistro, so we know we can get along in a social setting too.”
He could see her warming up to the idea, and he felt the same. It made him feel brave.
“We can. So… what if we did? Go out to dinner, I mean. Maybe tomorrow night?”
A tiny part of him felt a spark of nerves. It had been a very long time since he’d been on a date, after all. But another part of him felt really good about the idea.
The cautious smile that spread across Diana’s face made him feel more excited, however.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “I will pick the restaurant, which I recognize is dangerous, because you are the local and I am the newcomer, but I am committing… and I am babbling.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, but I like it.”
“Great,” he said.
“Great,” she said.
It should have been an awkward moment, but somehow it just wasn’t. It was… nice.
It was only after Diana left that his nerves started to set in. What was he thinking, asking a woman as incredible as Diana out on his first date in… years? Was he destined to become one more story in Diana’s list of terrible dates?
No, he could definitely do better than talking about fish guts. He could do this. He could.
He just had to hope that this wasn’t a huge mistake.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Not for nothing did Diana own a boutique. She loved fashion and had been known to dither over her outfit a time or two.
But changing her earrings for thefourthtime was probably a bit much, even for her.
It was maybe time to admit that she was nervous. Like, really nervous.
Which was silly, of course. She knew Anthony and knew she could have a really nice time with him over dinner. Even if they didn’t click as dates, it wouldn’t be an evening she would regret, unlike so many of the other dates she’d gone on recently.
So why was she so gosh darnnervous?
“Probably because if it goes badly, I’m still going to have to see him,” she muttered to herself as she switched her earrings one last time, which just so happened to be the first pair she’d tried on in the first place.
Beneath her nerves, however, was this undeniable thread of optimism, one that had been vibrating inside her ever since Anthony had asked her out to dinner. Maybe this was the thing she’d been hoping for, the organic connection that didn’t come because she’d swiped one way or another on her phone.
