“What?” I gasped. “How could you possibly have guessed that?”
His gaze dipped to the Jeep key fob in my right hand, giving away his tell with yet another signature wink.
“Ah. Right.” I rolled my eyes and matched my stride to his. “For a second there, I was beginning to wonder if your mind-reading skills were as honed as your T-Rex impression.” I couldn’t help the breathy laugh that escaped me at the memory of him crouching atop Mrs. Walker’s desk.
“Unfortunately, my telepathy skills still have a long way to go.”
“Well, even so, I’m pretty sure you’ll be every student’s favorite dinner table topic tonight.”
Once we reached my Jeep, I tossed my purse and book bag onto the back seat. My phone and wallet spilled to the floor, and I reached to collect the items and tuck them back inside the zippered pocket. As I turned to face him again, Joshua’s forearm rested on the frame of my open driver’s side door, totally relaxed, as if he was perfectly content to wait on me. If only.
The kindness behind such a simple gesture caused my throat to pinch.
Until that moment, I hadn’t been sure there were still men in the world who took the time to open doors for women. Especially ones they hardly knew. Because if chivalry was alive in our culture today, I certainly hadn’t encountered it on any of the first dates I’d been subjected to. And I wasn’t sure which idea made me want to shed a tear more: the fact that chivalry wasn’t dead, or the fact that my timeline for romance was.
“About dinner . . .” he started, in a voice slightly less confident than when he’d spoken of his dinosaur impressions, “I’m not exactly sure what the protocol is here, or even if there is a protocol for this, but I’ll be kicking myself all the way home if I don’t ask.” His pause stilled my pulse. “I’d like to take you to dinner sometime, Lauren. Anytime, really. Even tonight, assuming you were planning on eating dinner tonight.”
The boyish curve of his mouth intensified the tightening in my throat. Not because I wanted to say no to him, but because I couldn’t remember ever wanting to say yes to a dinner date invitation more. Joshua Avery wasn’t some random setup. He hadn’t texted me out of the blue because a friend’s brother’s neighbor thought we’d have something in common. He wasn’t the result of an online matchmaking site or a bribe sent by my meddling sister.
He was simply a man, asking me out the old-fashioned, face-to-face way, and everything in me wanted to melt into a sappy puddle of Where have you been hiding these past few years?
A light gust of wind from behind lifted my shoulder-length hair and swished the ashy blond strands across my cheek. His eyes tracked as I worked to tuck it back behind my ears. “Crazily enough, I actually was planning on eating dinner tonight.”
“Well, would you look at us, two crazy people who planned on eating dinner on a Monday night. I knew I’d felt a connection with you—that must be it.” His good-natured laugh ribboned through me, causing me to forget, or at least to pretend to forget, why dinner with him would be such a terrible, terrible idea. “Should we join our plans, then? Eat at the same place, at the same time? I promise my human table manners are superior to the manners of my T-Rex.”
My cheeks actually ached from smiling so hard. “Well, when you put it like that—”
Another gust of wind cut through us. A sharp rattling sound pulled our attention away from each other and toward the windshield of my car, where a small piece of white paper flapped against the glass, the corner of it tucked under my wiper blade. Joshua barely had to extend his arm to pluck it out. The note was written on a simple piece of card stock, no preamble or privacy fold. Just bold black ink and familiar penmanship.
Don’t forget about coming over tonight!
Ben
Our eyes locked on the sentence as the note became a living, breathing entity between us. I opened my mouth to explain, hoping the right words might magically appear on my tongue despite my jumbling brain cells. Because this note represented so much more than a previous commitment I’d made and nearly forgotten about. It also represented a commitment I’d made to my future, one I had no right divulging to a man I’d known for less than a day when my own family still hadn’t a clue.
Joshua spoke first. “Looks like you have plans tonight.”
I lifted my gaze to his. “Yes.” The only word I could force to exit.
His smile retreated to half-mast. “Maybe another time, then?”
“Actually,” I began with a boldness I didn’t quite own, “I don’t think I can do dinner for a while.” For a while? What was I even saying? No one mistook a while to mean years. But that was exactly what it would be for me: YEARS. And by then, Joshua Avery would have found some other woman to take to dinner on some random Monday night in the future. Heck, by the time I was eligible again, he’d likely be ready to enroll his own little caramel-headed first grader into an elementary school nearby. “My life is a bit complicated right now is all. I’m sorry.”
His measured nod of understanding halted my mental spiral. “Well, then, Lauren Bailey . . .” He tapped the inside of my door with his oversize hand. I stared at his fingers, noticing his too-short nails and cracked cuticles. Someone should really tell him to put olive oil around his nail beds so they wouldn’t split during winter and bleed. But that someone couldn’t be me. “I hope you have a good evening. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”
“Thank you, yes . . . okay. I’ll see you then.” Feeling the bite of the wind on my face for the first time since he walked me to my Jeep, I shivered as I slid into the driver’s seat and secured my seatbelt. He didn’t move away after he closed my door, and for some unknown reason, the simple act of inserting my key into the ignition took four tries.
Joshua waited until my engine had fully warmed and my tires were inching away from the spot I’d parked in for the last ten years before he took a step back and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
This time, I didn’t resist the urge to look back. And when I did, his gaze was waiting for me, one that offered a wink I wished I wouldn’t have to forget.
chapter
four
While the majority of American women obsessed over home makeover shows, desiring crisp white shiplap walls and minimalistic living spaces to eradicate clutter, I craved something else entirely. My fingers skimmed the seam of my pocket where I’d stuffed Benny’s note, giving myself an extra moment to take in the ranch home before me. The one with bicycles tossed in the yard and thirsty potted plants stationed below a porch littered with teen shoes and backpacks. But what I admired most about this house was the permanent gap in the front door, as if saying to every passerby, Come on in! We’re home! Because the Cartwrights were those kinds of people. The kind who met elderly singles at the grocery store and invited them over for potato soup and card games. The kind who found pleasure in raking leaves and baking pies and taking hikes—as long as they did it together. The kind of people who believed face-to-face connection wasn’t synonymous with FaceTime.
But perhaps what I admired most about them was their ability to make friends feel as close as family. Even closer, in my case.