AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He nudges it toward me.
“Not poison, if that’s what you’re wondering. You have to pay extra for that sort of thing, and I’m short on cash.”
I take a small sip to cover up my smile.
The taste of vanilla wraps around me like a warm hug.
Damn it. It’s good.
“Thank you,” I mutter with a hefty amount of reluctance.
Maybe he knows he owes me an apology after last night. Crashing my date? That’s low even for us.
“So? How was the rest of your night? Did your spreadsheets fall in line?”
His dimple comes out to play. “They’re getting there. What about you? How was your dinner?”
“Mydate? Great, thank you for asking. I’m so used to dealing withdifficult people”—my gaze on him hopefully drives home my meaning—“I forgot how pleasant it can be to share polite conversation.”
He narrows his eyes in assessment of my comment. “Is that right? Yeah, Blaze does seem polite.”
I nod emphatically. “His little smiling face is probably pasted in the dictionary right underneath the word. Let’s check.”
His eyebrow quirks cynically. Maybe I’m laying it on too thick. “Tell me one thing you two talked about after I left.”
Now, this proves difficult. I had quite the job of keeping our conversation rolling last night. I felt like I was working overtime trying to think of topics to discuss.
“We bonded over our love of steak,” I swoon. “We split one, actually. It wassocute. The kitchen staff split it onto two plates for us, and they must have caught wind that we were on a date because they arranged our mashed potato piles into perfect hearts. I have a picture. Here, I’ll show—”
He pushes away my phone. “So did Mr. Polite take you for dessert after?”
“He was too full.”
Disappointing, I know. I put away my entire mealandhad room for ice cream, but that’s no surprise. I have a dinner column and a dessert column. They’re totally separate, only I guess not for Blaze. I understand, though. He’s very interested in keeping up his toned physique, and I can’t blame him! I’m sure it helps him get good tips at the grotto. He didn’t even touch his mashed potatoes. He scrunched his nose and made a comment about all the butter and salt. Meanwhile, my mouth was so full of the fluffy stuff I couldn’t even respond beyond a hum of agreement.
“But after dinner, he walked me home ...”
Well, he walked me to the outside of the restaurant, at which point he broke off to go meet some of his friends, but Cole doesn’t need to know that.
“He and I, y’know ...” I circle the pad of my finger on the desk like I’m scrawling Blaze’s name in cursive in a journal.
Cole’s throat bobs as he takes this in.
I puff out a breath like I’m still trying to recover.
“After, I couldn’t wait to call and tell my parents all about him.”
Well, I’d tried, at least.
They were out on a boat in the middle of the ocean when I called. The service was pretty spotty.
“You did what, hon?” my mom asked, shouting into the phone.
“I went on a date!”
“Youatea date?”
Yes, Mom, I’m placing an international call from halfway around the world to let you know that I just finished eating a piece of fruit from a date palm tree. I thought you ought to know.
