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“You know if you ordered an actual meal instead of a salad, you wouldn’t need to steal my food.”
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” Layla said with an apologetic smile. “My bad. Have you seen the waiter?”
We looked around the restaurant, our waiter nowhere in sight. She seemed content to wait patiently until the man reappeared, but I had no intention of keeping her waiting that long. The man could have gone on break for all we knew.
“Excuse me,” I said as a woman came out of the double doors of the kitchen, looking down at her waist as she tied on her apron. I rose from the chair and called, “Miss?”
Her head snapped up, her ponytail bobbing and lips parting as she gazed up at me. Everything seemed to freeze all at once—my mind spaced on the reason I called out to her in favor of frowning at her heart-shaped face and pink cheeks.
“I...”
The tint on her cheeks darkened and my forced attempt to find words failed. I cocked my head to the side as I studied her closely, unsure of what the hell was happening to me. My only saving grace was the woman seemed to be in a similar state of shock.
I had no idea why the moment was so weirdly tense, but the awkward moment was broken by Layla as she made it worse.
“Excuse my brother-in-law,” she started, stressing the words pointedly. “But our waiter seems to have vanished and I’d like to order something else. Would you mind?”
The woman blinked a few times before dragging her gaze from me and offering a kind smile to Layla. She dug into her apron and pulled out a pen and pad of paper as she softly said, “Of course not. What can I get you?”
Layla prattled off an order almost identical to my meal while I cleared my throat and sat down, hoping I didn’t look as uncomfortable as I felt. The sound of her voice had snapped me out of my trance while simultaneously making the blood in my veins heat to a fucking boil.
I wanted her. I hadn’t wanted a woman like that since...
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
Layla raised an eyebrow and gave me a look that clearly said ‘what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?’ as the waitress’s attention shifted back to me.
To her credit, Layla plastered on a smile and asked, “Did you want that dessert?”
“Oh. Yeah. That sounds... good.”
The waitress was giving me an uncertain smile and Layla groaned before grabbing the dessert menu and showing the woman what I had pointed out earlier. She jotted it down and walked off, leaving me with nothing to do but stare at her back with a confused kind of awe.
Until Layla plucked a crouton out of her salad and tossed it at me. It bounced off my forehead as she accusingly asked, “What the fuck was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that sexual tension,” she whispered with an over-exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows. “So thick you could cut it with a knife. Damn. You better ask her for her number when she comes back.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Why the hell not?”
I ground my teeth together and refocused on the pain that still made my chest ache as I hissed, “Because the last time I touched a woman that young, I ended up marrying her. Then she tore my fucking heart out.”
Layla was quiet for a long moment, staring at me with expressionless eyes before she eventually shrugged. Though she seemed disappointed, she understood well enough to not push me.
“Guess I can’t argue with that.”
“No. You can’t.”
“Though I could say—”
“Please don’t.”
“She’s not Sarah.”
