I smooth the draping fabric around my hips and then rotate slowly for my audience. “Well, what do you think?”
Olivia has her hands pressed against the sides of her face, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. She opens her mouth, and a gasping breath comes out. “Oh my gosh, Gage!”
I feign a frown as I look down at myself. “Do I need a bigger size?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she answers in between giggles. “It’s perfect. Like it was made for you.”
I beam. “So, I should get it?”
“Definitely.” She steps closer, reaching for the muumuus hanging on the rack. “But if you get one, I’ll feel left out if I can’t buy one, too.”
“Ah, of course, madam.” I sort through the various colors and designs. “Let’s see…” I unhook a hanger from the rod and hold it in front of Olivia. “Thisone would look divine on you.”
It has a V-neck and a dark green background with a loud, neon floral print. “Really brings out your eyes.” I’m joking around, but when I shift my gaze from the nightgown to her face, her eyesdohave me in a trance.
I realize how close we’re standing to each other, the garment and a couple of inches between us. Olivia stands frozen, her wide eyes locked on mine. My fingers, holding the hanger near her face so the shoulders of the dress line up with her shoulders, brush softly against her cheek of their own volition. It would be so easy to lean in, angle my head, and kiss her, especially when the look on her face says she wouldn’t stop me.
My foggy brain clears enough to remember our surroundings. I can’t kiss Olivia for the first time after five years standing in a Walmart wearing a muumuu. That’s not the memory I want.
I force myself to step back, my breath ragged. I slide the hanger back on the rack. “We should probably get going.”
Olivia shakes her head, as if waking up after a dream. “Yeah.”
I strip the muumuu off and hang it up before grabbing Olivia’s basket of supplies. I force a languid smile and extend my hand to guide Olivia ahead. “After you.”
Chapter twelve
Olivia
“Howabouticecream?”Gage asks after we shove the shopping bags in the trunk. He points toward a little shop across the street.
I sigh. “That sounds amazing, but I spent a small fortune on craft supplies so …”
He chuckles. “My treat.”
I tilt my chin toward him and grin. “Andthisis why I needed you here.”
This feels better. The banter and joking around with each other is much safer than whatever that moment was back in the store. Attraction was never the problem between me and Gage. Camaraderie wasn’t either. The problem was … well, me.
That attraction was crackling again as we stood too close in the muumuu section of Walmart. As his fingers grazed my cheek.
He stepped away first, but I was still mesmerized, especially when the front of his shirt stuck to the nightgown as he removed it, lifting to reveal the abs I punched all those years ago. Except not the same abs at all. Fourteen-year-old Gage was strong for his age, but he was still a kid. The stomach I stole a glance at today was all man. Chiseled muscles underneath a sprinkling of blond hair so light I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if I wasn’t looking so closely.
My stomach flutters now thinking about it.
“Let’s go!” Gage calls out. He’s already halfway across the parking lot. I jog to catch up with him, and we cross the street together.
The ice cream shop is one of those old-fashioned parlors lined with glass cases featuring huge tubs of ice cream in a dizzying array of flavors.
But I already know exactly what I want.
“Let me guess,” Gage teases as we peer into the freezer cases, “you’re going to order chocolate peanut butter in a waffle cone?”
Okay, so my ice cream preferences haven’t changed since high school. Why mess with success?
I laugh and tap my nose. “And for you…” I pause as if I need to really think it over. “Blue raspberry in a cake cone.”
Gage smiles. “Guilty.”
