"Good boyfriend. I'll get my own. Did you order?" At Luke's nod, Sabrina said, "Okay, give me a second then, I'll be right back," and grabbed her card so she could pay for her lunch at the counter. That was the cafe's entirething: they did lunch, and they did it really well. After a brief internal debate about the merits of pastrami vs corned beef, Sabrina ordered a turkey club like she always did, and went back to the table, where somebody had just delivered a sandwich roughly the size of her torso to Luke. "Wow."
"I know," he said a bit apologetically. "It's just that I'm big."
"I noticed," Sabrina said dryly as she sat down. "I just didn't know they made sandwiches that size here."
"They don't usually," Luke admitted. "This is the Luke Jones Special. A butterflied chicken breast grilled plain, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber and mustard, laid out on a loaf of sourdough. I've been known to eat two on a hungry day."
"That sounds delicious, but I don't think I could eat two in a hungryweek! I have to save half my turkey club for tomorrow's lunch!"
"Do fake boyfriend duties include nobly eating your leftover sandwich?"
"Oooh." Sabrina laughed and planted her elbows on the table, propping her chin as she nodded toward Luke's lunch. "Go ahead, don't wait on mine. And I don't know, finishing somebody else's sandwich, especially without asking, that's real intimacy territory. Do you think we're there yet?"
Luke's eyebrows flew up as he wrapped his big hands around his sandwich. "I don't know. How long have we been dating? And just so I know, how do we feel about stealing each other's fries?"
He had skinny fries on his plate along with the other half of his sandwich, so in response, Sabrina snaked a hand over and stole one. "I get to steal yours," she announced. "You have to ask, except with chunky fries, which I'm not crazy about. But if you steal my chunky fries you have to give me all the tiny crunchiest bits left from your own chunky fries."
"Hm. Seems unequal."
"You can look really wounded if I steal your fries without asking, how's that?"
"Oooh. Dangerous. You might not want to commit to that without seeing the wounded expression first."
Sabrina said, "Oooh," back. "Maybe I better see it."
Luke's eyes were deep brown to begin with, but they somehow seemed to suddenly go liquid black as his eyebrows quirked sorrowfully and, Sabrina swore, his chin quivered with incredibly convincing dismay. She actually fell back into her seat, raising her hands in defense. "Okay, okay, no, I can't take it. There will be no fry-stealing without permission. Oh my God!"
As quickly as it had come, Luke's dismayed expression disappeared into a grin. "So how often do I get my own way with that look?"
"Honestly if you use it to get your own way a lot I'm breaking up with you. It's really manipulative under those circumstances."
"A woman with healthy boundaries," Luke said, apparently impressed. "Excellent. So how longhavewe been dating?"
Sabrina groaned. "About seven weeks? Nowhere near long enough for me to be bringing you to a wedding, for God's sake, but you volunteered because you'd never been to Vegas. Yousaid you'd skip the wedding itself if Mindy felt you were a gate-crasher, given that we haven't known each other all that long."
"Thoughtful of me. What'd she say?"
"Obviously she wants you to attend so she can make sure you're real. Which." Sabrina made a face. "Has been a problem, clearly." Her own sandwich arrived and she smiled up at the server, then smashed one of the quarters down to a bitable size.
Luke stole one of her fries, which seemed fair, since she'd taken one of his. "So I'm going to the wedding. Do I need a tux?"
"Do youhavea tux?"
"In fact, I do. Where'd we meet? Are your friends not of the 'pics or it didn't happen' generation?"
"We met at the Fourth of July parade and festivities here in town. I didn't want to pin it down to a job, and yeah, of course they want pics, but I told them I'm not submitting photographic evidence to them until I actually have a sense of whether this has a shot at working."
"No wonder they're suspicious," Luke said, but more in a thoughtful way than a judging one. "So have you actually not taken any pictures of us since we started dating, or are you just not showing them to your friends?"
"Both, I guess? Since it's not like I've got a backlog of photos…"
Luke beamed at her. "Let's eat up and take care of that little problem."
CHAPTER 4
Sabrina eyed him dubiously, but she did in fact eat up her sandwich and then arched her rounded eyebrows in expectation as they headed out to the town square and the sunshine. "What's the plan?"
"You, that is,we, leave at six tomorrow morning, right? Does that mean flying out at six or leaving for Syracuse at six to catch a later flight?" Luke hoped it was the second one, and smiled with relief as Sabrina echoed those words exactly.
