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I hummed. “I rarely watch them, so it’s hard to pick.”
“Really?” he said, clearly surprised.
“But,” I amended, “I love a good sports documentary.”
“Me too.” He leaned in for a sweet kiss.
It was so easy to forget other people were at the table when he looked at me that way. I didn’t really care if my sisters were watching with unabashed interest because Lord knows I’d had to watch my fair share of mooning over the last couple of years.
I slid my hand over his, relishing the easy affection. “The questions Anya asked me,” I started. He smiled sadly but didn’t interrupt. “What were those about?”
His chest expanded on a deep breath. Then he told me the story, and I didn’t even attempt to stop the tear that slid down my cheek. He brushed it away. “It was something she looked to for a long time as … truth, I guess. That if anyone would know, it would be Beth.”
“And you?” I asked carefully.
Aiden shook his head. “It was, I don’t know how to say it right. I wasn’t planning on using it as a checklist, if that’s what you’re asking, mainly because I had no intention of finding someone.” He curled his fingers around my thigh, smoothing it up and down. He gave me a wry smile. “But it probably didn’t help that you were the exact opposite of what she told Anya.”
I smiled. “Probably not.”
He studied me so intently.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
The thing I loved was that I could wait to ask him more because we had the time, not because I feared the reaction.
People shifted around us, moving to the dance floor as he and I talked.
He preferred winter over summer and broke his leg when he was twelve.
He didn’t drink often, and only one beer when he did.
When he went to college, his sister made him take a stuffed animal so he didn’t get lonely, and he kept it on his bed his entire freshman year, no matter how much his roommates teased him.
He asked me why I decided not to go to college and how it was being raised by my brother.
When the cake was cut and passed around, he took a piece of coconut, and I chose the strawberry, which we shared. When he held his fork out to me for a bite of his cake, I absently wondered if I’d ever get sick of talking to him. Of hearing what he had to say.
His eyes darkened when I licked at a speck of frosting at the edge of my lip.
When our plates were cleaned of cake, I sat back in my seat and surveyed him carefully. “Not a bad date, Hennessy.”
At the use of his last name, he quirked an eyebrow. “We’re back there.”
“Well,” I drawled, uncrossing my leg so that I could turn fully to face him, “I think you still owe me a little bit.”
“Do you?”
His dry tone had me smiling. “You didn’t have to buy me dinner,” I told him. “Or dessert.”
He hummed, caging me in by setting an arm on the table, the other stretched along the back of my chair. “How would you normally end a date like this?”
There was no way for me to answer that without giving myself away completely. I had no idea where the night would lead, but I knew where I wanted it to. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a date like this,” I told him with complete honesty.
Based on the look in his eyes, he saw the truth of my answer.
“Me neither.”
