“Okay, first question. What’s your favorite color?”
His response is immediate. “Blue.”
The apples of his cheeks tinge pink as he glances at my eyes and then away. I try to keep my expression neutral but my voice is a snitch, full of expectation.
“Blue’s a good color. Why’s it your favorite?”
He flops back against the bench and stares up at the sky, then over at me. “If I told you it’s because I like the sky, would you buy that?”
“Um, I mean.” I scratch my shoulder and let my hand fall back into my lap. “If it’s the truth, sure.”
Ryne’s tongue flicks against his top lip. He purses his mouth to the side and narrows his eyes like he’s sizing me up and making some sort of determination. Wish I could see inside his head right now. “I’m kinda partial to blue eyes, that’s why.”
“Oh.”
A grin breaks out on my face and Ryne startles me when he reaches over and pokes my dimple. I wonder if there’s such a thing as dimple kink. The thought deepens my grin even more, and beside me, Ryne sucks in a breath. He lets it out slowly.
“What’s your last question, Dacen?”
My grin settles and a sense of calm washes over me, a rare but welcome feeling. “What made you decide to bring me here? To do something for my birthday?”
It’s at least a full thirty seconds of silence before he responds in a low voice. “I don’t really know how to answer that question.”
And that’s okay, I appreciate his honesty. If anything, it makes me hopeful he’s coming around to the idea of some sort of us. There’s a lull in our conversation after that. Ryne props his elbows on the back of the bench and crosses a foot over a knee. After another moment, he turns his head toward me.
“So what’s the verdict, D?”
“The what?”
“My official grade. How’d I do?”
I want to tease him, make him think he earned a low grade, but one look at his face and all thoughts of that vanish. He tries so hard to keep that gruff, unaffected shield up all the time, but it slips now and then, and before he turns away I catch the vulnerable softness in his expression. I’ve only got one answer to his question: the truth.
“Definitely an A+.”
He looks at me again and grins. It’s cocky, smug, and maybe even a little bit arrogant, but there’s also a shine in his eyes that betrays his relief at my answer. It lights him up inside, and that cocky-smug-arrogant face of his just ends up looking completely adorable. I can still have a little fun with him though. It is what we do after all, lately anyway.
“But…” I let that one word hang in the air between us.
Ryne’s eyes narrow. “But what?”
I grin widely, the kind that makes my dimples pop. “There’s always room for extra credit.”
His lips slowly pull up into the kind of flirty smirk that makes me forget my name. Ryne drops his foot to the ground and leans in. His tone is low and his words vibrate through me.
“Well lucky for you, Dacen, I’ve always been a bit of an overachiever when it comes to the things I want.”
Butterflies take flight in my stomach, zipping around and fluttering everywhere. I’m pretty sure he also just answered my last question.
27
Dacen
We’re back in the parking lot and I glance at Ryne as we approach his truck. “Can I drive home?”
He stops walking and turns to me. One of his eyebrows is raised high and his arms are crossed over his chest. “Do you know how to drive a stick?”
“Oh I know my way around a stick, Ryne,” I rasp out before I have a chance to filter myself. “Believe me.” His lips twitch and he pulls his keys from his pocket. “All kidding aside, yes I know how to drive a stick shift.”
