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“So? Seems to me that’s kind of awesome. She believes in you.”
“Oh, no…” she groaned.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“You’re one of those perpetually positive people, aren’t you? A real ‘glass is half full’ type?” And really, she should have seen that coming already just from their few interactions.
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing,” he said lightly. “Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with choosing to think positively regardless of the situation.”
“Yeah, well…not every situation has a silver lining. Sometimes crappy things happen to good people and that’s all there is to it.”
Reid nodded and took another bite of his meal, and Ashlynn suddenly didn’t know what to do or say. It had been a long time since she’d gone out with a guy and had some good conversation. She had a feeling Reid was good at that sort of thing and she’d gone and blown it.
Change the subject then, dummy…
So, with a bright smile, she forced herself to relax. “So, what’s it like being a firefighter?”
Late Sunday afternoon, Reid looked around his new apartment with a sense of accomplishment. He’d gotten everything moved in one trip. His buddies from Roanoke had been awesome and helped him get literally everything he owned onto the moving truck. His mother was handling cleaning the apartment for him, so he didn’t have to go back and forth to finish anything like that. A couple of the guys followed him—basically because someone had to drive the moving truck and he had to drive his own pickup—and they had gotten everything into the new place with no problems. He was going to treat them all to pizza, but they had declined because they wanted to get back home before it got dark. Something about the mountain roads here in Sweetbriar…
Whatever.
Now he just had to start unpacking everything.
“Tomorrow,” he murmured before collapsing on his sofa. He could start doing that tomorrow. Hadn’t today been enough?
There was a knock on the door and it took every ounce of strength he had to get up and answer it. Pulling the door open, he was a little shocked to find Ashlynn standing there looking mildly annoyed, even though she was trying to smile.
“Hey, Ashlynn. What’s up?”
She glanced into his apartment. “Are you done moving in already?”
He nodded.
“Okay, whew,” she said, visibly relaxing. “I was never home when the previous people moved in or out and I couldn’t believe how loud all that was. I came up here to see how much more you had to move in so I could decide if I needed to go to Chloe’s or something.”
“Sorry about that. I guess I never thought about that sort of thing either. But…there really isn’t a way to move three rooms of furniture quietly.” Stepping back, he asked, “Do you want to come in?”
“Thanks, but…now that I know you’re done, I can order my pizza,” she said as she took a step back. “So I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Wait!” he stepped out into the breezeway. “I was just going to order pizza too. Would you like to join me? Maybe?”
Ever since their dinner together last week, Reid had been trying to think of a way to ask her out. But his schedule had been crazy and when he talked to Leo about the whole double date thing, he said that Avery wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Unfortunately, she didn’t give a reason; she just didn’t like the idea.
But now that Ashlynn was standing right here, he figured it was the perfect time to try something casual. “What do you say?” he prompted. “If you don’t mind navigating around the boxes…”
She chuckled. “As fun as that sounds, why don’t you just come downstairs and we’ll eat there? I’ll call in the order…”
“Nope. Absolutely not,” he told her. “I’ll call it in and it’s on me.”
She eyed him warily. “This isn’t a pity thing, like my sisters with the pub food, is it?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. This is about me being hungry and I had already planned on buying pizza for my buddies, but they left before I could do it.”
“They ditched you? Seriously? That’s weird.”
“I think the mountain roads scared them, so they wanted to leave before it got dark.”
That made her laugh. “Ah, city boys. Got it.”
