He nodded.
She pinched her chin. “Adventuresome, aren’t we?” She set her eyes back on the menu, her gaze darting between her two favorite options. If she got both, she could take the leftovers home. Or see if her father wanted them. It was settled then. Anika came to the table and took their orders.
Blayze really did stick to the naan, nothing else. Except for a Pepsi, that is; that alone made him more relatable somehow.
“Glad it’s not too hot today,” Sophia said, sinking into the booth with a sigh. She kicked her shoes off under the table and twisted her ankles in slow clockwise motions, one after the next.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions now, if that’s okay.” Blayze pulled a notebook from a thin backpack he wore. It resembled a holster from the front, and Sophia guessed it held more than school supplies.
“Of course,” she said. “Ask away.”
He drafted a circle in the center of the page. “Is it just you, or are you dating someone?”
She fought the urge to lift an insinuative brow. Something about the guy’s serious nature sparked that playful side of her. “I’m single.”
He scribbled a small S in the center of the circle he’d drawn and put a box around it. “And your mother passed two-and-a-half years ago.”
“Yes,” she answered. “The day before Easter.”
With his head lowered over the notepad, Blayze looked up at her through his lashes. Sophia had always liked the lighting here, the way the bright, yellowed bulbs shimmered off the rich fabrics draped along the walls. But as the light hit Blayze’s blue eyes, it seemed to spark an odd flame somewhere in her chest. So piercing. Or maybe it was his expression. “For the record,” he said, voice low and husky. “I can see why you didn’t want to believe there was foul play in her death. I’m sure you’re still adjusting to that whole… revelation.”
He was right. She nodded, grateful for the acknowledgement. “Thank you.”
“Your father hasn’t remarried?”
“No. I don’t imagine he ever will. He’s still in love with mymadre.” She recalled the way Papa’s campaign manager, Isabella, spoke to her father recently. More playful and familiar. Would he ever entertain having a relationship with her?
Blayze scratched an F next to Sophia’s S. She assumed it represented her father.
“Brothers? Sisters?”
She shook her head. “No. My parents struggled with infertility. They thought about adopting but they never did.”
He nodded, drew a few lines out of the circle and began asking about friends. Co-workers. Ex-boyfriends. Anyone she’d dated in the last three years. Sophia listed the five guys she’d gone out with over that time, and Blayze scribbled their names at the bottom corner of the page, first and last name.
“Oh,” she blurted, remembering one more. “Connor Kinsworthy.”
He glanced up. “You dated themayor’sson?”
She nodded. “Yep.” Sophia smeared the single word with pride, but more on his father’s merits than his own.
“From when to when?”
“Last year,” she said. “I think from May to July.”
Blayze grimaced as he scribbled Conner’s name to the list.
“What?” Sophia asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head, but a smile pulled at one corner of his lips.
“No,” she persisted. “Do you know him?”
“He tried joining the Navy the same time I did. Didn’t last more than a month.”
“Huh. He didn’t make it pasttraining?”
“Nope.”
