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“There’s one a few miles away in St. Helena. Has some cute shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. Mostly locals, and we get a lot of tourists in the summer, so it’s not exactly a good place to lay low. People would probably recognize you.”
“I’m willing to take the risk. I’ll wear a mustache and glasses or something. I haven’t been to a movie theater in years.”
“Years?” I’m not sure I heard him right, and I’m half-laughing at the idea of him in a fake mustache. “Like, what was the last movie you saw in a theater?”
He blinks a couple of times and taps his finger against his lip. It’s crazy how such a throwaway gesture has me squirming like he’s lit a fire inside me. I want to bite his finger. “I dunno. E.T.?”
I laugh, and he grins at me. It’s getting easier to elicit a smile from him, but each one still feels like a gift.
I find myself wanting to be deserving of them. So I pull up an app on my phone and look at movie times.
“We’re in luck. There’s a classic movie thing going on this weekend. We can find one even older than E.T.”
“Perfect. I’m in.”
I shouldn’t feel the warm thrill race through my chest at the thought of sitting in the dark next to Colin Hathaway. I shouldn’t feel a lot of things I’ve felt when I’m close enough to Colin for my body to quiver in anticipation of contact—the accidental brush of a finger, the weight of his hand against the small of my back when he escorts me in front of him, and the sexy rumble of his deep voice.
But I feel all of them. And I can’t make it stop.
Chapter
Eleven
Colin
According to PJ, the area has only one big grocery store, so there’s a good chance it will be crowded on a Saturday morning. As a preventative measure, she outfits me in a baseball hat and sunglasses. No mustache.
“Don’t you think this makes me look like more of a pretentious asshole?” It was one thing to wear a hat and glasses on my hikes, but wearing shades inside a store seems like overkill.
“Fine, take the glasses off if you want, but keep your head down if you don’t want someone snapping a selfie with you picking out Oreos and tweeting that you’re ruining the planet by supporting Big Snacking,” PJ says, making me laugh. She pulls her electric car into a spot far away from any other cars.
I appreciate the lengths to which she’s going to help me do lowbrow everyday things without the risk of running into people who might recognize me. Even though I keep telling her I’m not that recognizable, she insists it doesn’t matter. “All it takes is one. Then your whole attempt to lay low is blown.”
She’s not wrong, but I feel a little guilty taking up so much of her time. Especially because I’m enjoying it far more than I think I should.
Walking down the produce aisle, I follow slightly behind her, noticing the curve of her hips, how her waist nips in, and the way her hair trails down her back in ribbons. As if she can feel the heat of my stare, she casts a look over her shoulder, and I try to hide my wolfish admiration. “Do you like Rainier cherries or red ones?”
I barely hear the question, so consumed with watching her lips move. They’re the color of ripe cherries themselves, and I’d so much rather take a bite from them than any fruit in this aisle.
“Come with me.” I extend my hand, knowing that the moment she puts her hand in mine, I’ll be crossing a line I promised myself I wouldn’t cross. Just like that moment by the lake when her palm grazed my skin, I won’t want to let go.
Her soft skin slips against mine as I surround her hand with my palm. She looks away, but I see the creep of blush across her cheeks.
I’ve been feeling her gravitational pull, along with my closest friend's warnings to stay away. Well, fuck him. Except that he’s not wrong. She’s ten years younger than me, and our lives are complicated by work and expectations that we follow a course that’s already been set for each of us.
But he is wrong in thinking I need a warning. I can make my own messes just fine, thank you very much. And I really like this woman. It’s the carefree way she goes about any activity without a glimmer of self-consciousness. It’s the way she nailed exactly what my publicist did wrong without a second thought.
I’d have turned tail and told him to follow her strategy because she’s smart and right, but a selfish part of me wants to have these two weeks with her at Buttercup Hill. I never let my emotions guide me, but around her, I can’t help it.
And right now, this is harmless fun, the two of us spending a casual day doing normal things. No one would accuse us of going on a date to a grocery store.
Except that all I want to do is push her against the paper towel display and kiss her.
Pretty sure that’s not a normal response to grocery shopping, but that’s the magic of PJ Corbett. She makes a mundane stroll past canned peaches feel like a hot date.
“Where are we going?” she asks as I lead her away from the produce and toward a snack food aisle. The fluorescent overhead lighting paints everything in an otherworldly glow, but I only notice her.
And…the chips.
