Mac leaned back and flashed a smile. “Hello. You look great.”
Heat crept over her chest and up to her face. “You look good, too.”
“I’m glad you came out tonight. I was afraid you would blow me off.”
“Surely no one has ever done that to you.” She shouldn’t have said that. It was too flirty and way too forward. Sure she was interested in him but getting involved right now would take too much of her time.
“You would be surprised how many women have stood me up. They don’t think I’m serious.”
She nodded. “I wasn’t sure you were serious about wanting to go out with me.”
His lips spread into a slow smile, warming her heart and bringing tingles to her skin. “Of course, I’m serious about wanting to get to know you tonight. You know that, don’t you?”
April raked her teeth over her lower lip as she heated from his gaze. The man was seriously sexy and made her pulse with excitement.
“Let’s go eat,” Mac said.
She nodded and followed him into On the Rocks. The place was close to what she remembered, but Myrna wasn’t there, head thrown back with throaty laughter spilling out. A shiver snaked through her, and Mac turned, his eyebrows knit together with concern.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
They took a seat near the front. When the waitress came over, they each ordered a beer. She looked around, trying to figure out if the reality of this place matched her memories.
“Have you been here before?” Mac asked.
She met his gaze, trying to determine how much to tell him. Steph had said he spent summers here but had they ever met way back then?
There wasn’t any reason to keep her past from him. “My aunt lives here in Fallport. When I was younger, and my mother couldn’t hack taking care of me, she would leave me with my aunt. It wasn’t a permanent situation, but I was here off and on throughout the years. I went to second grade here—or most of it. I remember this place. After bowling night, my aunt and her friends would come here. They would drink, and sometimes I’d fall asleep in a booth.”
Worry passed over his features, and he leaned in. “Most bowling nights are during the weekdays. She’d keep you up at a bar on, like, a Tuesday night?”
April chuckled. “It was better than being with my mom.” Her hand flew to her face, and she covered her mouth. “Sorry about that. I loved my mom, but she was chaos.”
“What do you mean?” Mac asked.
April blew out a breath. “Are you sure you want to hear about this? It’s a lot for first-date material.”
“I’m sure. Tell me.”
She took a long drink from her beer and sat back, glancing around. “I really did love my mother, but she wasn’t stable enough to have a kid. Mom loved chasing ideas. She would wake me at two or four in the morning or midnight to catch frogs, see a meteor shower, or follow a dolphin. We traveled with the stars, heading west when Mercury was in retrograde, or maybe it was north. I don’t know, but we didn’t stay anywhere for long. She would stay up for days at a time, painting or chilling. I smoked dope for the first time when I was ten. I didn’t like it. There were some really fun times, but then there were the manic phases. She would drop into a sadness that no one could help her with.”
She stopped speaking for a moment, and Mac leaned in. His eyes held sympathy. She wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted from him.
“What happened with your mother?”
The cringe was automatic. “Mom drove her car off a cliff. The cops thought it was suicide at first. I heard them talking about it while waiting for someone to pick me up at the station. I guess they didn’t think I was listening.”
“That’s awful,” Mac said.
She shrugged, trying not to get twisted up in the memories. “They ruled it an accident.”
“Oh. I don’t know if that’s better or not.”
“I don’t know either. So enough about depressing stuff. Tell me about yourself.”
“What would you like to know?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know. Do you like to cook?”
Mac made a face. “I can cook mac and cheese. Do you like the outdoors?”
“It’s okay. I mean, I like it here. I’ve hiked a bit in the hills. It’s good. In Texas, it’s too hot, the same as Florida. I like some places. My turn. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
Mac took another sip of his beer. “The mountains in Canada. Like near Whistler.”
“It’s beautiful there,” April said.
“What? You’ve been?”
“My mom dragged me to so many different places. We spent a while in British Columbia. We went to Alaska, then took a boat back to Seattle. It was interesting trekking all over the place.”
“What did you do about school?”
The waitress came with their food, stopping their conversation. She added ketchup to her burger and took a bite, then moaned. “This is good.”
Mac nodded. “It is.”
They concentrated on eating. About halfway through her burger, she started talking again. “School, like a bunch of other stuff in my life, was difficult—not the classes. Those were easy. But it was ultimately up to me to do everything. I was lucky that I picked stuff up fast. When I moved into new school districts, which was often, they tried to put me in remedial classes. I wasn’t having that and made them test me. Some school districts were pissed that I did so well on tests and qualified for advanced classes. I took about twenty of those placement tests over the years.”
“That’s wild. School came easy to me, but not that easy. I had to work for it.”
“I did, too, kind of. But I think my idea of working for it wasn’t exactly what other peoples’ ideas of working were.”
Mac leaned in, and a conspiratorial gleam shone in his eyes. “Do you like ice cream?”
She nodded. “I do. I like ice cream with cake best. Especially the ones made as ice-cream cakes.”
Mac lifted his eyebrows. “Those are good. So do you like to dance?”
She nodded as she finished chewing. “I do. Are you a good dancer?”
Laughter followed her question. “I think I am, but maybe I’m not. I do like to dance.”
She’d almost finished her burger but set it down and hit him with a hard stare. “Okay, so this is a tough question. What is your favorite sport?”
Mac chuckled again as he shook his head. “Oh my goodness, I hate watching sports. Like with a passion, I hate it.”
Shock pulsed through her. “Wow, that’s…interesting.”
“I know, right? Like people have this thing where they think guys watch sports all the time. But it’s not true. If I’m playing, I’m fine, but I get bored watching.”
“Well, I’ll mark watching the golf tournaments on TV off the list.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Kill me now. That has to be the most boring sport ever.”
“Do you have any pets?”
“Growing up, I had a dog and a cat. What about you?” Mac asked as he ate the last of his burger.
“Nope. My mom wasn’t stable enough. I knew better than to ask for a pet. She couldn’t keep plants alive. There was no way we’d keep a dog alive.”