“We’re the same age—”
“Major?” I ask, moving past that topic as fast as I can.
“Economics. Premed for you?”
“Yes.” A joy fills my chest. Although I have all kinds of questions about his major, I go easy. “Favorite food?”
“Cooking or eating?”
I giggle. “Figures a chef would get that specific. How about both?”
“I’m a cook, not a chef. As for food: Eating—fresh caught catfish after a day on the lake. Cooking? Hmm . . .” He rubs his chin. “Maybe omelets. You can make them a million different ways. Kind of simple, I know, but it matches me, I guess.”
“I don’t find you simple at all.” The ball sort of drops, and I wish there were takebacks. But since it’s already out there, I follow up with, “I think you’re rather interesting, Joshua.”
“Enough to want to share another special someday?”
“Someday.” I can’t give in that easily. Where’s the challenge in that?
Pushing off the table, he stands and begins collecting the dishes. “I need to get back to work. The dinner crowd is already piling in.”
I look around, and despite a bell above the door, I never noticed the restaurant is now full. “Of course. I can leave money on the table.”
“Now why would I let you do that? This is a date, remember?” He punctuates it with a wink.
Looking down when my cheeks feel hot, I smile to myself. I peek up at him under my lashes. “I remember.”
When he takes the dishes, I slip my backpack back on. It gets lighter, so I turn around to find him adjusting it. “Don’t want to hurt your back carrying all those books around. Not sure if you know . . .” His tone drips in sarcasm. “But everything you need is online these days. You don’t actually have to carry books.”
“And here, I was starting to think I wouldn’t get another of your smart-ass comments. Thanks for coming through for me.”
Snickering, he replies, “You’re welcome.”
I start for the door and notice him behind me. “It’s okay. I can see myself out.”
His shoulders hit the bottom of his ears. “Yeah, no worries. I was just coming to get fresh air.”
“Ah. Right.” I laugh. On the sidewalk, I stop awkwardly, looking down the street, and then turn back to him. “So, I’m going. Thanks for dinner.” I have no idea what I’m doing, which seems to be a running theme when I’m with him. But I do it anyway. “You know how you told me to tell Frankie hi?”
The laugh rumbles through his chest as he runs his thumb over a plush lower lip. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I was thinking you could tell her yourself sometime.”
He tries so hard to restrain his smile and fails. I’m fairly certain it’s the only thing he fails at. “I could do that. I’d have to check my schedule. Maybe I can give you my number, and you can send me a text sometime.”
“Absolutely. Frankie will love the visit.” I pull my phone out and hand it to him.
As he types, he says, “Anything for Frankie.” When he hands my phone back to me, he pulls his from his pocket with my number flashing on the screen. “Hope you don’t mind me sending a text to myself. Now, I have your number.”
“Text me the specials.” I start to back away in the opposite direction, and say, “You never did tell me about that happy ending.”
“Like I said, it’s something I have to show you.”
“Maybe next time.”
He reaches for the door. “You got it.”
I don’t know why my feet feel like they’re full of lead, but every step I take is painful. My phone buzzes in my hand with a message from him: I forgot to tell you something.
Me: What?
Joshua: The second thing.
I turn around to find him standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a grin that makes me weak in the knees because I’m the one who put it there. I raise my arms out, and from half a block down, I yell, “What?”
“My last name is Evans.”
Realizing that all the things instilled in me growing up flew out the window the day I met him, I start to wonder if he’s what’s been missing from my life. “Joshua Evans,” I say well out of his earshot, just liking the sound of it. But my feet are moving, and although he said I had to trust him on that happy ending one day, it’s too late for propriety. I feel alive. I want another taste of that happiness today.
I run with my backpack bouncing, slipping it off and dropping at his feet as I fly into his arms. Our lips meet in pure passion, pushed to the brink by flirty banter as foreplay. With his arms wrapped around my middle, his body is pressed to mine with no room left for misinterpretation.
My arms tighten around him, and all I feel is his heat against my lips, between my legs, and in this kiss. Our lips part, and our tongues meet, embracing like a familiar lover from the past. When all the air is empty from my lungs, I kiss him longer, breathing him in instead.
This time when our lips part, he doesn’t set me down but looks at me eye-level. Breathless and panting, I say, “Chloe Fox. That’s my name.”
And suddenly that smirk isn’t offensive or arrogant. It’s infectious, causing me to display one of my own. “It’s nice to meet you, Chloe Fox.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Joshua Evans.”
6
Joshua
Kissing Chloe Fox has become my new favorite pastime.
I don’t know what happened at the diner earlier in the week, but the moment our lips met, some kind of kiss and attack game began. I didn’t take her for spontaneous, considering her type A personality, but on Wednesday, we discovered we both have classes near Kline Biology Tower at two. Let’s just say we were almost late to our next classes after making out in an empty lab room for a half hour. If I’ve learned anything about her in the past week, it’s that she’s regimented. Pushing her boundaries might be my second favorite thing right now. Thursday, though, I was the one to blame. It killed me to have to stop kissing her in the photography section of the art gallery before racing to work. Everything about her calls to me. She’s smart and soft.
I’ve been dying to touch her all day, feeling the itch in my palms, so this time when I spy her refilling her bottle at a water fountain, I stand behind her and pretend to wait my turn. This was my first mistake.
Turning to dash back down the hallway, she runs right into me, her hair swinging wide around her shoulders as water splashes across my shirt. “Oh, no!” She gasps in horror. Her gaze glides up my chest and then a little mischievous smile appears. I see when the devious cogs start to turn. Rubbing her hand down my shirt, she says, “I am so very sorry about that,” not sounding sorry one bit.
“I just bet you are.” My abs start tightening from the cold water pricking my skin, and I take her by the elbow, moving her off to the side. “It’s funny how we haven’t seen each other in the three years we’ve been here together, but now we’re running into each other everywhere.”
“True, but I wasn’t looking before.” The space between us is too far, and knowing we both have class soon, I get to what’s been on my mind. “I’ve been thinking you—”