Fucking A, who even am I?
Also, dude, that sounded way stalkerish than you intended. Just think, “I dig her laugh.” Period, end of.
She waves her hand in front of me, and I blink.
“You okay?” she asks.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing.” She laughs. “You just got this spacey look on your face, and I didn’t know if you were about to pass out yourself.”
“Nah.” I clear my throat and try to pull my man card back to the forefront. “My feet are firmly planted.”
It’s a lie. I feel like I could go down at any second. I’m sweaty and discombobulated from all these weird thoughts running rampant in my head.
“Let’s get this food going,” I say.
We stand side by side. She works on the omelets, while I work on the Swedish pancakes, and it’s all so unreal…so domesticated and fucking heartwarming I can hardly take it.
If this is how heaven is, I’m all in.
When we sit down across the table from each other with our feast, we smile happily. At least she seems as happy as I am. I want to keep her that way as long as possible.
She takes a bite of the pancakes, and her eyes widen. “So good. I’ve never had them this way—with the powdered sugar and lemon on top.”
“My favorite way to eat them.” I point at her when I taste my omelet. “You downplayed your omelet skills. This is delicious.”
“I had all the perfect ingredients to work with.”
“I know you have a work meeting this afternoon, so I want to make sure I get you out of here on time,” I say.
She makes a face. “I got a message right as I was leaving that the meeting has actually been moved to tomorrow. I would’ve been so upset about leaving California sooner than I had to, but then I would be missing out on this.”
“It sounds like serendipity,” I say. And then I make a face. “No, wait. I take that back. Saying the word makes me think of that movie, and I hated the movie. My sister made me watch it, and when those characters—John Cusack and Kate Beckin-what’s-her-name, left each other saying they’d rely on serendipity, I almost quit watching right then. But I had to see what would happen.”
“It was beautiful. They found each other again after all those years.”
“So many wasted years! No, we are not doing that. I have your number, and you know where I was raised.” I hold my hand out to wave across the room. “I won’t be leaving it to chance with my number on a dollar bill.”
She laughs. “I thought it was so romantic that she put her number in a book.”
I shake my head. “You’d get along with my sister. She started putting her name and number in every book for a while, hoping she’d randomly meet the right person for her. So…I don’t have to go into work. Maybe we could have our third date as soon as this afternoon? Is that what you’re saying?”
Her eyebrows lift, her green eyes so bright. “You won’t be sick of me by then?”
I grin. “Not a chance.”
“Well, what did you have in mind?”
I look at my watch. “Can Can Wonderland wouldn’t be open yet.”
“I haven’t been there.”
“Fun vibes. We could…” I glance out the window and curse under my breath. “Be snowed in.”
“No way.” She glances out and gasps. “That must have just started after I got here. There’s already at least four inches out there.”
“It’s really going down.” I lift my shoulder. “I guess we’re stuck. I mean…are we ever really stuck in Minnesota? Sometimes I wish they’d shut everything down once in a while.”
