Trap shook his head and laughed. “I am not. Stop saying that.”
“You really are,” she insisted. “You’re very personable on camera.”
“As opposed to in person?”
Lila Mae smiled. “I mean, you’re a little more serious in person than I anticipated.” She made a tiny distance with her thumb and forefinger. “Just a tad.”
“Only with people I don’t know very well,” he said. “Or that I’m trying to impress, or who are clients.” He held up his third finger as he checked the items off. “And right now, you’re all three.”
“You’re trying to impress me?” Lila Mae teased.
“Always,” Trap said seriously.
“Because I’m a client?”
“Yeah, sure,” Trap whispered. He reached across the tiny table between them and covered her hands with both of his. He dropped his chin, but Lila Mae had left his cowboy hat back in the stable, and he didn’t have it to hide behind. “And because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
Lila Mae’s insides turned into straight goo with those simple words, and she sighed. “Thank you, Trap.”
He took a deep breath. “So what do you think? Dinner tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Lila Mae said. “I close up the sanctuary around five. That’s when my secretary goes home, and then I deal with all the cats, and that takes about another hour.”
Trap nodded. “So if I came out here to pick you up around seven, that would work?”
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded, got to his feet, and then sank right back down into his seat, as if he had fallen.
“Hey, are you okay?” Lila Mae asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “I was just thinking, I don’t really want to drive home.”
“We could watch a movie,” Lila Mae said. “You can see my in-wall TV in action.”
Trap grinned at her and nodded. He got to his feet without a problem this time, and Lila Mae joined him. She put away the bench while he put his bowl in her sink and washed the dishes.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I only do dishes once a day, in the morning.”
“I’m not leaving my dirty dishes for you to do,” he said, a hint of the usual Trap grumpiness in his tone.
Lila Mae let him finish the dishes while she pressed the button that would open the door that hid the TV in the wall. It revealed the forty-eight inch flat screen TV, much to her delight. She sank onto the couch with the remote in her hand, asking, “What are we feeling like? Romantic comedy? Action-adventure? Family drama? Thriller?”
“Something easy,” he said. “Without a plot that I have to pay close attention to.”
Lila Mae flipped through the offerings on her streaming services, glad when Trap joined her and sat right next to her, not down on the other end of the couch. She told herself it made the most sense, as those were the two spots right in front of the TV.
Why can’t he like me?She’d been at odds with everyone in her family for the past couple of years, and honestly, Lila Mae had been unhappy withherselfand her life prior to moving to Three Rivers.
Since she didn’t like herself, she wasn’t quite sure why anyone else would. It didn’t help that her previous boyfriend had told her she was “too uptight” and “no fun.” And when a woman got told that, she had a hard time believing that anyone could or would like her.
She named a few movies before Trap said, “Honestly, Lila Mae, I don’t care. Just pick something.”
So she picked a musical where she liked the music, with an easy plot that he wouldn’t have to follow. He didn’t protest as the movie started, and, in fact, it didn’t take him long before he yawned and asked, “Can I lay down right here?”
He did so without waiting for her to answer, somehow folding his tall body onto two-thirds of the couch, with his head in her lap and his legs up over the side.
Lila Mae said nothing, and instead, stroked her fingers slowly through his hair, combing it back off of his face as the movie played on. Trap indeed fell asleep only a few moments later, and Lila Mae sat there in the moment, basking in the comfort and happiness she’d assumed she’d never feel again. Not in her life, and certainly not with a man.
