“Okay,” I said, and my voice came out softer than I’d intended, warm around the edges in a way that probably told him everything. “Come by tomorrow.”
He nodded once. “Tomorrow,” he said.
Then, because the morning had already been so full of small brave things I hadn’t planned on saying, I kept going before I could stop myself. “I’ll make you lunch. At my place. You can—” my voice caught for half a second, “—you can meet the cats.”
He went very still. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted into the most openly amused expression I’d seen from him all morning. “Is this a date? Because I accept.”
“No.” I felt the heat immediately singe my cheeks. “It’s a—a thank-you lunch. For labor. It’s a labor lunch.”
“A labor lunch.” He said it with great seriousness. “At your house. That you’re cooking.”
“Yes.”
“With the cats.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He nodded, very serious, except his eyes weren’t serious at all. “I accept.”
“You accept the labor lunch.”
“I accept the date.”
“Jasper.”
“I’m teasing you.” A pause, warm and unhurried. “Mostly.”
And there it was again—the heat flooding up my neck, blooming across my face, climbing all the way to my ears. I could feel it. He could see it. There was no hiding it and no way toplay it cool, and I had to settle for covering part of my face with my hand and staring very intently at a spot on the floor near his boots. “You’re the worst,” I mumbled into my palm.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s true right now.”
“Okay.” Softer. A small shift in his voice, warmer than before. “Right now. Maybe I am the worst—but you like it.”
I risked a glance up at him. He was watching me with something warm and quiet and unmistakably pleased in his expression, like he’d been handed something he hadn’t expected and wasn’t planning to let go of. It made things considerably worse for my face.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“That is not a nothing face.”
“It’s a nothing face.” He leaned against the counter, unhurried, watching me with an expression I didn’t entirely trust.
“It is not.” I could feel the heat in my cheeks, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
A small smile broke through—slow, genuine, the kind that reached his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. He looked at me for a moment without saying anything, which was somehow worse than whatever he was about to say.
“You’re beautiful when you blush.”
I picked up the nearest book and looked at the back cover with tremendous focus. It was a book I had read twice. I read the blurb anyway.
I made a noise that was not a word. I couldn’t help it—somewhere between a protest and a very undignified squeak—and I dropped the book and pressed both hands to my cheeks like I was trying to physically contain the heat, and his smile went a little wider. He was leaning against the doorframe now, inno apparent hurry, watching me with the calm patience of a man who had decided he was enjoying himself and saw no reason to stop.
“Okay,” I said. “You need to leave. You need to go to work. Right now.”
“I’m going.”
