“How about we both go to the store?” He turns off the stove and swipes his keys from the hook beside the door.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that level of commitment?” Sure, we’ve been banging left, right, and center, but we have yet to leave the house together as a couple.
He arches a brow. “Are you?”
Please. I was born for this.
I lace my fingers with his and tug him toward the door.
This is going to be fun.
Elliott’s hand slides off the gearshift to poke my thigh. “Why are you smiling like you just watched someone kick your ex in the balls?”
Man, that would be some great entertainment. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I’m not entirely sure I should tell him but not telling him would be lying by omission, and I don’t want to start this relationship on a lie. “I was thinking that, normally, my first dates are to the movies or a nice restaurant, not a grocery store.”
His lips press into a flat line as he flicks the blinker, changing lanes to overtake a minivan crawling down the road. “This isn’t our first date.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Is this his second flaw? Having a terrible memory? “Fine. When was our first date?”
“New Year’s.”
“Oh, you mean when you made out with someone else in front of me?”
“You made out with her too.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Okay, maybe not New Year’s.” His thumbs tap the steering wheel as he considers. “How about the night I gave you steak sauce?”
“That doesn’t count because I bought my own dinner, and you didn’t even stick around for dessert.” Not saying a woman can’t pay her own way on a first date, but I wouldn’t want to brag about that if anyone were to ask.
“Fine. The night I picked you up at the bar.”
“I don’t think fingering me through my pockets is a very good story to tell our grandkids.”
He chokes on a laugh, then sobers. We hit the traffic lights, and instead of turning left to the store, he hangs a right.
“Um, hello? The store’s that way.”
“We’re not going to the store.”
He drives to a little ice cream parlor right on the edge of the moonlit lake. The gravel crunches beneath his shoes as he runs around the front of the truck to open my door for me. He buys me a peanut butter milkshake, and I make fun of him for his plain vanilla ice cream.
Elliot insists vanilla is the building block of all the best sundaes and shakes, so I eventually let him have this win.
His shoulder bumps mine as he crunches his cone. “How was that for a first date?”
“Best first date I’ve ever been on.”
“It’s not over yet.”
