He laughed, shed his own jacket, and sat across from her, reaching out to take her hand across the table.
“He wouldn’t have been allowed to take you to a pub, first off. And no. Probably not.”
“I’m dying to know. What would have been a typical date when you were that age?”
Before he could answer, a short-haired, tall woman with knee-high boots and several earrings in her left ear approached them. Levi leaned back, letting go of Jilly’s hand.
“Hi. Can I get you a couple drinks to start?”
Levi looked at her, waiting for her to order first. “I’ll take a glass of house red, please.”
“I’ll have the same.”
She nodded and left them alone. The song switched to something softer and more soulful and Jilly knew that if she were still writing in a diary, she’d definitely have some things to say about this moment; this night. This man.
Levi reached for her hand again, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “No one knows how to date in their teens. Usually, it was hanging out at someone’s party after a game. Maybe a dance, though I didn’t go to many of them. I think I took Meagan Salcheck to dinner and the movies when we went out in ninth. Saved for weeks to do that.” He smiled like he could picture it. “She hated the meal and felt sick from the popcorn.”
Jill laughed. “My first date was with Cody Grieggs in seventh.We held hands all the way to Pete’s, had ice cream that he paid for, and he walked me home. The next day, he told everyone Tilly Harper was his new girlfriend.”
Levi winced. “Ouch. The wonders of young love.”
She didn’t even mean to take the opening. “Have you ever been in love?”
She liked that he considered the question, took it seriously. “I think I might have thought I was with you. But you were Beckett and Gray’s sister and I was seventeen and leaving. Two years is nothing now but then, it felt wrong, even though I don’t think I’d ever wanted to kiss a girl that bad.”
Warmth infused her body like she’d sunk into a perfect bath. “And then I tried, and we know how that ended.”
He kept holding her hand. “You loved your husband, I’m assuming.”
The warmth faded at the mention of Andrew. “I did. Enough to put aside the red flags, push down the warnings, and set my own feelings aside.”
“I’m sorry.”
She smiled. “It worked out okay.”
The waitress brought their drinks, set them down. “You need a few minutes?”
“Just a few,” Levi said, smiling politely.
She nodded and went to the next table.
Jillian felt like she needed to sum it all up so it wouldn’t be a question between them. “I don’t love him anymore.”
Levi picked up his drink. “I didn’t think you’d be here with me if you still did.”
She nodded, took a quick sip of her wine. “I wouldn’t. We were over before I ended it. He’d embezzled money not only from his firm but from people we knew. People we called friends. When Ifound out, they all thought I knew so it was like I’d betrayed them. The life we built together started to crumble before I even knew why. Friends stopped calling, they wouldn’t get together with me and Ollie. People talked about us. They’d stop talking when we walked in a room. When it all came out, what he’d done, he didn’t try to tell the truth to any of our friends. He let them believe I’d known. That I had supported him.”
Levi’s jaw tensed, a storm brewing in his dark gaze. He swirled his wine. “If they knew you at all, really knew you, they wouldn’t have believed it. I’m sorry it hurt you. Sorry that you went through all of that. I hate it. But I’d like to think what we get through, what we find a way to get over, makes us stronger.”
Breathing a sigh of relief that she could put it all out there and not have him look at her differently, she picked up her menu.
“This date is off to a very good start,” she said, her lips twitching, her heart beating in quick flashes.
Levi picked up his menu, opened it. “Must be the company.”
After they’d ordered burgers—chicken for him and beef for her—they went back to talking, the conversation never lacking or lagging.
“Who was your second date?” Levi asked.
