Levi looks away, and the muscle in his jaw begins to tick. Restaurants and theaters are hotbeds of unceasing stimulation on multiple fronts. He knows I’m right, and he hates it. The self-loathing is practically writing itself along the tightening lines around his eyes.
I lift my hand, place my four fingers behind his ear, and press my thumb into his pulsing jaw muscle. It takes a minute, but he finally sighs, unclenches his teeth, and meets my gaze again.
This beautiful,notbroken man. I hate that past experiences have caused him to see himself the way he does. That it somehow defines him in an unfavorable way because considerations and accommodations need to be made. But, hello! Who among us doesn’t need some sort of accommodation for something—whether because of a physical trait, a past trauma, or ...something! That need doesn’t make any one of us weak or broken or less than anyone else. It makes us human.
“There isn’t a law written down anywhere that dictates acouplehasto go to dinner and the movies on a date. Actually, if you think about it, it’s pretty cliché, don’t you think? No originality involved whatsoever.”
A look crosses his face that I don’t like. Resignation, I think it is. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
He looks away again. “Make excuses for me.”
“No one is making excuses for anyone here,” I scoff, outraged. “I’m just stating facts. If a guy takes me to dinner and a movie, then I don’t think that he’s put much thought or effort into our date. He could be taking any woman on the planet to those places; it’s nothing special. Honestly, it says a lot about him even before the date begins, and I usually don’t have high expectations for more than a way to kill a night.”
I want more than that with Levi. And I want us both to be comfortable and enjoy ourselves when we spend time together. “Besides, there’s something that sounds better than going out on a date anyway.”
His forehead scrunches. He doesn’t believe me but he’s curious. “What’s that?”
“Stayinginon a date.” I wiggle my brows at him, then add a little shoulder shimmy action.
He smiles slightly but shakes his head. “Okay, I may be a novice at this whole dating thing, but that just sounds like hanging out to me.”
“Oh, grasshopper, you have much to learn. Soft music playing in the background, a delicious home-cooked meal, candlelight. Just the two of us. And our brood of kittens, of course. Because, while you may have sole custody now, I demand visitation rights, which means you have to bring our babies along. What do you say?”
“I say—” he leans in and kisses my lips—“I can’t wait.” He kisses me again. “And also, if eating together in the privacy of one of our homes, just the two of us, constitutes a date, thenmaybe we’re a lot farther along in this relationship than either of us thought, seeing as we’ve technically been dating since we met. According to your definition, that is.”
I grin against his lips as he kisses me again. “What an interesting observation.”
25
With Hayley gone, the quiet crescendoed to deafening levels. Usually too much noise—whether volume or from too many competing sources—was what gave Levi issues. Now the tension in his shoulders and the pressure building inside him were directly linked to the absence of the sound of Hayley’s voice and laughter.
Levi needed a distraction. Something to get his mind off the fact that she’d only been gone a little while and he was already missing her like crazy. Who would have thought the guy who craved time and space to himself would have such a yawning pit in his middle when he was given just that?
Levi marched into his office and toggled the mouse to wake up the computer. Hayley had been right; he had some work that he needed to catch up on. Finishing the order on a few parts he still needed for the Plymouth, for starters. After that, he could check for any new listings of cars for sale. See if anything looked good and could be his next potential flip project. The engine he’d found at the salvage yard needed to be cleaned up still, then he could sink it under the Barracuda’s hood and see how she purred. He hadn’t lined up a buyer yet, so he could work on that too.
Bringing up his supplier’s website, he logged on and checkedhis virtual shopping cart, then compared that to the list of the parts he didn’t have on hand. It was important to use as many of the original parts as possible in restorations. Collectors could easily spot when something was off.
The trill of the desk phone to the right of his keyboard broke through the stillness around him. He picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, little brother. It’s your favorite sister.”
He leaned back in his office chair and twined the phone cord around his finger. “Hello, Aliyah.” Because of the spotty reception, his family always called his landline instead of his cell when they wanted to get ahold of him.
An outraged gasp sounded through the speaker. “Rude. Wait, I said little brother. You’re just messing with me.”
“So sorry, Nova,” Levi said another of his sisters’ names, though not the one on the phone.
“No one thinks you’re funny,” she grumbled.
Not true. He’d made Hayley laugh plenty of times. Not that he was ready to tell his sisters about her and get bombarded with a million different questions, so he’d continue to let them think that he lacked a sense of humor. “You’re right, Constance. My apologies.”
“Just for that I should wear my most floral-scented body mist later,” Constance threatened, even though she never would do such a thing.
He sat up straighter. “Wait, you’re coming over? Today?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
