“I was worried the flowers would wilt.”
His smile turned rakish, completely fucking with the twitching situation in my panties. “I didn’t give her a chance to weigh in on it. She’s got her own ideas about who I should settle down with, and as you can guess, they don’t match my own ideas.”
“Settle down? What are you? A toddler runnin’ rampant?”
“No.” He smothered another laugh.
“Oh, a playboy, huh? No skirt left unturned, is that it?”
He snorted, a look of shock nearly overtaking him with just about everything out of my mouth. “Not in the slightest. I might have been on my share of first dates, but far fewer second dates.”
“Skirt turnin’ doesn’t even require a first date.”
“Nor am I a college kid hooking up like rabbits every free second.” He winked.
Oof, my heart.
“Touché.” I grinned, but heat surged in my cheeks. “But that’s not me either.”
“No? You accepted a date from a much older man. What should I think of you?”
I shrugged. “I can’t tell you what to think. But if you want to play it like that … What’s an older man like you doin’ with a younger gu-irl like me?”
He leaned forward slightly. “You have pretty eyes.”
It was the simplest of compliments, and yet it set off flutters behind my ribs to my toes.
“Hmm, what’s this? A blushing virgin?”
“Iama virgin.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped in the most non-snobby tone of the evening.
“I’m nineteen. We aren’t all sex fiends, you know. I come from a small town where gossip is currency. Plus, I have a shit ton of younger siblings and cousins to take care of and set an example for. I’ve never had the time for fuckin’ around.”
Luke tapped the fingers of one hand on the tablecloth and rubbed his jaw with the other. “And now the truth. Nineteen, huh? Not twenty-one?”
I quirked one corner of my lips and shrugged before taking a sip of water, avoiding the question and deciphering the look in his eyes.
“Anyway, so your momma wants you to get married?” I asked.
Luke sighed. “Yes. She was ready the moment I graduated from college, I believe. I’ve been able to thwart her at every turn since, but I’m running out of excuses.”
“You don’t want to get married?”
“No, it’s not that at all. I have no aversion to commitment.”
“What then?”
Luke chuckled and blushed. “Maybe this is more like a six-month-in conversation.”
“Fair enough. I don’t mind keeping our own secrets secret.” Not one bit.
I worried we’d settle into silence, but then Luke said, “So, nineteen. A freshman? Have you decided on a major?”
“Finance, for now. I think I’ll stick with it, but never say never and all that. That was your only question you get to ask me about school, unless we’re also gonna talk about your day job.”
“Financial advisor,” he surprised me with no hesitation. “We’ve got something in common.”
