And when Duke held his hand out behind him, his fingers beckoning to me like a lifeline, I took it.
3
Duke was tallerthan I had originally guessed. At 5’7”, I reached the top of his shoulders. The large walkway littered with concession stands was nearly empty. Beyond the hallway, the crowd in the arena erupted in shouts and claps. We must have scored another point. As the four of us walked toward the escalators, my mind relived the past few minutes with surprising alarm. What had I done? These guys were strangers to me, and I was contemplating getting into a car with them.
I slipped my hand out of Duke’s, immediately feeling more grounded. He looked at me.
“You alright?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“I still think you should have taken that guy outside,” his blond friend, Mike, said, playfully punching Duke as we shuffled onto the escalator. “I would have loved to see that.”
“His mullet could have probably taken me down,” Duke said easily, shoving his hands in his pockets as if he had no cares in the world. I stood one step below him on the moving stairs, and my eyes drifted briefly to his arms and had to disagree.
“Aww, he’s too sweet to fight anybody,” Ryan said, putting his hands on Duke’s shoulders and squeezing, giving Mike a pointed look before motioning to me with his head.
Duke shook his head, but the hint of color growing on his cheeks made him seem adorable.
“Take it down a notch, Romeo,” he said.
I finally figured out how I knew Duke’s blond friend, Mike. I had served him and his wife and kids a couple of days earlier at the cafe. It was the bright shirt and spiky blond hair that gave him away. Somewhere inside of me, that tiny interaction–not to mention the memory of his sweet wife and crazy-messy but super-adorable children–helped me to rest…if not easy, then at least a bit lighter in my current predicament.
Ryan stepped in front of me once we got off the escalator and stuck out his hand. He was eye level with me, with light-brown hair and a lazy grin on his face. “I’m Ryan, Duke’s oldest friend. I know everything about him, including how many times he wet the bed growing up, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask.”
Duke punched him in the arm while my smile broke free. My nerves were beginning to quiet, but I was still unsure of how to proceed. They all seemed so nice, but so did Jason. Should I go with them? Call an Uber? Mira? My mom was working at the cafe tonight. My car was about five blocks away, but walking alone down the dark streets didn’t appeal to me either. We were now rapidly nearing the outside doors. As if reading my mind, Duke stopped suddenly, and we all followed suit.
“Let me talk to Nora for a sec.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill and held it out toward Ryan and Mike. “Here, kids, go buy some hot dogs, but stay where I can see you.”
It took some prodding on Duke’s part before the guys meandered off to the concession stand, amid teasing and exaggerated eyebrow raises in my direction.
I tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, braving a glance at Duke. “I was under the impression that you didn’t have kids.”
Duke’s face lit up in mirth. “I only get them one day a month. And that’s usually enough.”
Wrapping my arms around myself, we stood in silence for a moment. I was trying to process that I had kissed this man only a short while ago. I didn’t even know his last name. Up until now, the craziest thing I had ever done in my life was not return a library book on time.
“Nora, I’d love to ask you out to go grab that cookie, but if this is all too fast or too weird for you, I’d be happy to wait with you while you call for a ride. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked at me. His brown eyes held a gentle confidence with a touch of vulnerability in their depths. A woman could fall in and get lost in eyes like that. The kind eyes, baseball hat, the light scruff on his face, and a quiet confidence were all working very nicely for him. I couldn’t tear my gaze away, and I couldn’t stop wondering why he was looking at me. Like that. I shouldn’t do this. In three days, I was moving away for an undetermined amount of time. I couldn’t get involved in anything right now. It had been an interesting night, but I needed to end it.
“Sorry. I’d love to, but I’ve got to retake a test tomorrow morning. I need to study.”
“Oh, you bombed it before or something?”
Bombed was definitely not accurate. “More like got a B, and it was going to bother me enough that I wanted to redo it.”
He stared at me incredulously. “Hold up. You’re retaking a test because you got a B?”
“Guilty.”
“Well, maybe it is best we part ways. For me, getting a C was cause for celebration at my house growing up.”
I looked up at him then and smiled when I saw he was teasing, “Alright then, Nora. Is your car somewhere around here, or did your date pick you up?”
“I met him at a Chick-fil-A parking lot a few blocks away.”
He nodded and seemed to be waiting for me to make a decision.
