“How do you manage it?” I ask.
“Manage what?” He rests his arms on the table.
“Being drooled over all the time.” I wave him away. “I would hate the attention.”
“Drooled over?” His eyes look quizzical and he turns his head to look back at the cashier. “Her? She wasn’t.” A pause, then, “Was she?”
I scoff. “You didn’t even notice?”
He sighs and shakes his head. “Like I said, people don’t know me. I try to stay polite, but I’ve learned not to be too friendly. I can’t give people the wrong idea.”
I click my tongue. “Huh.”
“What?” His smile is brief. “Does it bother you?”
I open my mouth to sayNo. Of course not.But something inside of me warns against it.
“Honestly? Maybe a little. I just don’t know how you deal with it.”
“I ignore it. It’s not real, anyway.”
“Oh, it’s very, very real. I saw the way her whole being responded to you.” I know my laugh is bitter, and I don’t want it to be, but I can’t seem to control it.
Taysom leans on his elbows and takes me in with his gaze, his blue eyes burrowing into my soul. “She doesn’t know me. Nothing she says or does matters. You, on the other hand, are a different story.”
I grunt out a laugh, but before I can give a snide remark, he continues. “Charlotte, you are worlds more interesting than her.”
I try to protest again, but he cuts me off. “Why do you think I’ve wanted to spend so much time with you lately?”
“Because Miley’s our cash cow. She’s what’s helping us create a full and successful gait screening night. We’ve got to milk our little cash cow.”
He laughs but grows serious again. “That’s part of it. We’ve got to exploit our little diva somehow.”
“Gotta make her worth our while.” Even as I’m joking, I know she’s gotten her little hooks into me. I’m having a hard time imagining life without her.
“Yeah, she’s gotta earn her keep.”
“Oh, come on.” My head drops to one side. “Even if she did nothing all day except lie around and look adorable, you’d still love her shamelessly.”
He agrees immediately. “Yep. But back to you.” He hesitates and then looks over at me, and I can’t read his expression. “The actual reason I’ve wanted to spend so much time with you is because…I like it.” He clears his throat. “You keep me on my toes. And I feel like I’ve both known you forever and am just discovering you for the first time.”
I can’t find any words, except a feeble, “Thanks. You’re not too shabby yourself.”
I want to say something more, maybe about how much fun I’ve been having with him and how I’ve started to mind less and less the idea of being all over social media.
But as I open my mouth, a woman’s voice sounds behind us.
“Taysom?”
He’s up and out of his chair in a flash. “Mom?” Her dark hair is trimmed short in a stylish pixie cut and she’s holding a man’s hand. He’s burly and has thinning hair. A quick dart of a gaze from him to her tells me one thing, loudly and clearly: He knows he’s the luckiest man in the world to get to hold her hand.
The sheer openness in his gaze makes a shiver tingle down my spine.
His mom lets go of the man’s hand and pulls Taysom into a hug. He dwarfs her with his lean bulk. “What a nice surprise,” he says.
“We came to pick up our takeout,” she says once they’ve pulled apart.
“Mom, this is Charlotte Mercer, Kyle’s sister.”
