I shrugged one shoulder and reached for the vanilla.“Could happen.”
He watched me while I worked, and I could feel it.Not in a creepy way.Just… steadily.Like he wasn’t pretending he’d come in here for the menu.
“Vanilla or do you want to try something different?”I asked.
“You’re the one who told me to get vanilla.I’ll just stick with that.”
I scooped the ice cream, careful to build the cone neatly.“You don’t strike me as the adventurous type anyway.”
He laughed softly.“No?”
“Nope.”
“And what type do I strike you as?”
I lifted one shoulder and kept my eyes on the cone.“Routine.Safe.Maybe a little boring.”
He put a hand over his chest like I’d wounded him.“Or maybe I just don’t feel the need to impress you yet.”
I finally looked up at him.“You come in, order the same thing, talk to the same person, and leave.”
His mouth kicked up on one side.“Maybe I like consistency,” he said.“Or maybe I just know what’s worth coming back for.”
Something in the way he said that made me pause.Not because I believed him, but because I didn’t know what to do with it.
Men did not come into the Dairy Bar wanting me.That wasn’t me being dramatic.It was just the truth.
I’d spent enough years in this body to know how the world worked.Pretty girls got stared at.Tiny girls got flirted with.The girls with flat stomachs and perfect hair got asked out just for standing still in the right light.
Me?
I got treated like one of the guys half the time and invisible the other half.Background.
I wasn’t stupid.I had mirrors.
So whatever this thing with Jesse was, it was fleeting.He was likely bored and new in town.Once he settled in, he would find some other girl who was prettier and skinnier to chase.I was just right in front of him for the moment.
I set the finished cone on the counter in front of him.“There.Your very exciting vanilla cone.”
He looked at it, then back at me.“I’m starting to think you judge me.”
“I absolutely do.”
“Harsh.”
“You’ll survive.”
He laughed again, softer this time, then reached into his wallet.He pulled out a five and held it in his fingers while I rang him up.
When I looked up, he was still watching me.
Not my chest.Not the menu behind me.Me.
That should’ve made me feel something.Instead, it made me wary, because attention wasn’t the same thing as wanting someone.
And wanting someone wasn’t the same thing as staying.
I knew that too.
