The next day, I was second-guessing my jacket. It was black leather, and practical for the back of a motorcycle, but I didn’t exactly look like a respectable adult, standing outside of the Crescent building.
They weren’t that uptight about their dress code or anything, but my black jacket and ripped jeans stood out in the sea of professional, pleated gray.
And then there was Landon.
When he saw me, he ran his hand through his rich brown hair and bit his lip and?—
Never fucking mind, then. If the leather jacket made him look at me likethat, it was the perfect thing to wear.
“Did you have somewhere in mind?” Landon asked when he approached.
“There’s a coffee shop nearby that we could try. That okay?”
He nodded. “So no bike?”
“I thought we’d walk.”
“Oh—”
Was he disappointed? Shit . . .
“It’s just,” I hedged, “the first time you wrap your arms around me, I probably shouldn’t be responsible for keeping us both alive. I might not be able to take it.”
The wink was too much. I knew, even as I did it, that it was too freaking much.
But Landon’s cheeks turned pink and he glanced down, but then he raised his eyes again so he was looking at me through a thick curtain of lashes.
My heart squeezed in my chest at his little, “Oh.”
It was an entirely different sound than the one he’d made seconds before, and it had me ready to promise him the world. “But I’d love to take you out some other time. We can go to the beach. Have you seen the coast yet? You’re from—Boston, right?”
He nodded. “I’ve hardly been off the east coast till now.”
“Well, you’ll love it. The coast is great. Temperate. Just warm enough without gettingtoohot.”
“I didn’t take you for a beach guy.”
I laughed. “Well, what cat doesn’t like basking in the sun? Anyway, Iama man who likes to take advantage of my assets, and it seems like somebody ought to be making the case for San Francisco, hm? We can’t have you getting too homesick.”
He scoffed. “Not going to be an issue.”
I held out my hand, and he took it. Even that, I was second-guessing. Not everyone wanted that much PDA from the start, but I wasn’t going to start rubbing my scent on him.
Well, not without consent, anyway.
There was a coffee shop nearby that I went to sometimes when I saw Lucas for lunch. It was a hole in the wall place with a narrow front and a big glass window beside the front door.Mostly, the coffee was consistently good and it was quieter than the kiosk Crescent had near its cafeteria.
“Have you been here before?” I asked, holding the door open for him.
Landon shook his head. “We’ve maybe ordered out, but, ah, we’ve had a backlog of tickets to get through, so I’ve mostly been staying in the building.”
“Well, now you have somewhere to escape to when Lucas starts throwing random trivia questions at you.”
Landon snickered. “Gods, he calls it ‘training.’”
“It’s your fault, you know. You’ve given him a taste of victory now. He’s going to be insufferable.”
We got to the counter, and I turned to him. “Know what you want?”
