“Where?”
“Sal’s?” It’s the only place outside of Grind Time and Mullin’s Pizza, and neither of those seems like enough of a date.
“You’re sure about this?” she asks.
I’m entirely unsure if the hesitation in her eyes is anything to go by.
“I think this is the surest I’ve been in a very long time,” I say. I hope she can see the honesty on my face.
She bites her bottom lip, gnawing on it as she thinks. I’ll wait for her all day if that’s what it takes for her to say yes.
“If we do this, we’ll be the talk of Bluebell Falls for the foreseeable future,” she offers like that’s something that would change my mind.
“Yep.”
She studies me like I have some wild ulterior motive, but she won’t find anything but the truth there.
Letting out a heavy sigh, her whole body seems to decompress. “Okay, let’s do this.”
I scramble from behind my desk, not wanting to give her a moment to change her mind. I bang my hip on the edge of my desk, cursing as the pain radiates through my leg. I’m usually more careful around that hip, but apparently this woman makes me reckless.
“Oh shit, are you okay?” She rushes over to me and bends over to check my denim-covered hip. I’m not sure what she’s expecting to see, but her worry for me causes warmth to bloom in my body.
“I’m good, just got a little too eager.” I chuckle, but the look on her face tells me she doesn’t find it amusing.
“Now that I know about your injuries, I swear you stress me out with shit like this.” She shakes her head.
“I’m fine, I promise. I’m a lot tougher than I look,” I joke.
“Don’t I fucking know it,” she mutters, and I have to hide my smirk by biting my lip.
“Let’s go eat.” I grab her hand as I stand to my full height once more and pull her out of my office, through the front door and into the warm Texas air.
Immediately, Jim Mathews catches my eye before looking down at our connected hands. An arched eyebrow looks back up at me, but I give him no response. This means the entire town will know in about ten minutes.
“Wow, that’s got to be a record,” Rina says quietly as she watches Jim scamper away into Grind Time, presumably to tell whomever he finds there about this new development.
I’m sure anything having to do with me is news around here since usually they can’t get any information out of me. And given Rina’s well-known dislike for me, this is definitely news-worthy.
Making our way to Sal’s, we walk in and it’s like a scene from a movie. A hush falls over the entire dining room, and everyone turns to stare at us.Fuck, maybe this was a terrible idea.
“Booth in the back is open,” Kelly Adams, the owner of Sal’s, calls from behind the counter.
“Thanks Kelly,” Rina says and then drags me to the open booth. She plops down on one side, and I slowly take my seat opposite her, trying to figure out if leaving is the best option here. I expected the gossip; I didn’t expect the gawking.
“We can—”
“Geez, it’s like we’re the next coming attraction,” she says at the same time.
“We can leave if you want. I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”
“Hell no. If we’re really going to do this—and I want to—we need to face the peanut gallery, however annoying it is. Now, if they come over here and try to interrupt our lunch, I will have a talking to with the whole damn town.”
God, I love her.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with the biggest smile on my face.
She rolls her eyes and picks up the menu by the window so she can look at it. I’m not entirely sure why since we’ve all had the menu memorized since we were in high school. Maybe it’s nervous energy. If that’s the case, she’s hiding it extremely well.
