By evening, they'd driven up to the hills, changed clothes twice, gotten sunset pictures that they both agreed looked romantic, and were back in town at the diner, which was decked out in fifties kitsch, complete with black and white checked tile flooring, red booths, and chrome trim everywhere. Sabrina kept laughing as she looked around. "I can't believe I haven't been here before. This is great. I've got to compliment the designer."
"I can't believe you haven't been, either," Luke said beneath the jukebox music. "There are only about four restaurants in town, including Kate's, and that's only open for lunch!"
"Well, there's Hold My Bear, the Italian place, the hotel restaurant, Kate's…and…here…" Sabrina had been ticking the places off on her fingers, and looked dismayed when she realized he was right. "Does your family's B&B count? Or—well, there's pizza, too, right? And…yeah, okay, the thing is I mostly cook at home."
"Really? I do too, but not many people seem to."
"You should understand that by 'cook' I mean 'make macaroni and cheese or fried egg sandwiches.' But yeah, it's just that restaurant meals are mostly way more than I can eat, and I don't like leftovers more than one day out, so…"
Luke snickered. "Whereas restaurant meals are about half of what I can eat, which is whyIcook. That and I can use healthier ingredients."
"So does that mean you've cooked for me? Or have we not gotten that far yet?"
"I might have invited you over for a cookout with the family, but that doesn't really count. I'm thinking that since I was gone over the summer, unless you've told your friends we've been glued at the hip, that maybe we've really only seen each other half a dozen times?"
Sabrina's dark eyebrows darted upward. "I haven't told them a lot, so yeah, that works. I did have the sense to not give tons of details about my fake boyfriend," she said, putting her face in her hand. "But yeah, that's smart. Although it might make it even crazier that you're coming to a wedding with me."
"Not compared to 'we met at lunchtime and I'm coming to a wedding with you' levels of crazy!"
Sabrina gave one of her big loud barking laughs that he already adored. "Good point! Oh, God, I need to buy you a planeticket! Shoot!" She got her phone out as Luke made a protesting noise.
"I can buy?—"
"No, no, absolutely not. For one, don't take this wrong, but I think I might earn more than you do, but for two and much more importantly, there is nowayI'm letting you pay for the privilege of zooming off on this wild hare scheme with me."
Wild RABBIT scheme!his rabbit said indignantly.
Sabrina, blissfully unaware of the rabbit's irritation, said, "Full name?" as she typed into her phone.
"Lucas Jonathan Jones. Jonathan without an H. I do okay, by the way. Financially, I mean."
"Well, good, but I'm buying you the plane ticket anyway. Lucas Jonathan Jones, I like that. A nice solid name. Birthday?"
"July eleven."
"Oh yeah? Happy birthday. Six weeks late, but whatever. What year?"
This was not going to make or break their relationship, Luke told himself. He already knew she was thirty-three, because she'd said so. He was still nervous as he told her the year, which she punched in, then froze. "…you're five years younger than I am? No. Almost six years. My birthday's in October."
Apparently it didn't matter that she was his fated mate and that he truly believed it would all work out. His heart was still hammering hard as he mumbled, "Yeah. Is that…is that a problem?"
"No, it's…you're just so…tall." Sabrina put her hand over her face again, laughed into her palm, and peeked through her fingers like she was embarrassed. "Which is an amazingly stupid thing to say, but I just figured…I don't know, that you were about my age. Well. Look at me, hooking up with a younger man."
"Will The Girls be horrified or impressed?" Luke heard himself capitalizing the crew's name in the same way Sabrina did, as she made a little smiling face.
"Both, probably. It's not likely to come up, but…" Her eyebrows drew into a frown. "They better not give you a hard time about it."
"Me?" Luke's voice rose with surprise. "I'll be fine. I don't want them givingyoua hard time. I can lie, if it helps. The whole thing is…"
It was funny how he didn't want to actually say it was fake out loud again. Not right then, anyway. Itmattered, right now, because Luke knew, even if Sabrina didn't, that forever was a possibility for them. If his age really did make a difference?—
"Absolutely not," Sabrina said crisply. "This is all crazy enough already. No way am I lying about your age, or asking you to. You're twenty-eight, not eighteen, it's not actually weird. I was just surprised. If they ask and then get catty, I'll punch somebody."
CATTY? his rabbit asked.Are her friends cat shifters? That's great! We can just tell her about us, now! Go Luke go!
No, it's a way of saying if they get mean,Luke said, though it was too bad the rabbit's interpretation wasn't right. It would make everything so much easier if Sabrina already knew about shifters.
"No punching anybody," he said aloud. "It'd spoil the wedding pics to have the bridesmaids sporting black eyes and broken noses. You're sure you don't mind?"
