Page 87 of Secret Baby for My Brother's Best Friends

"Noticed you had these in your vase and a couple of them were dead," he says. "Thought you might like some more."

I beam. "Thank you." Of course. He always seemed like the type who would give me a practical gift, rather than a purely romantic one. And somehow I like that about him. "They're pretty."

"You're pretty."

Just that phrase, said in his throaty voice, is enough to make me blush. I tuck my hair behind my ears and say, "You look very nice as well."

“I’m glad you like it,” he responds. "The cowboy boots were my mother’s doing, by the way, and if you hated it, I was going to tell her that.”

"You told your mother you were going on a date with me?” My eyes widen. I didn’t expect that from him. Somehow, I thought he would be the type to keep his dating habits to himself, if only because he seems like a very private person.

“No, at least not intentionally. I booked a reservation at a restaurant and forgot that she and I visited it while she was in town, so both our emails are on file. They emailed her about the reservation for two, and she figured it was for a date.”

“How come? She could have thought you were going with Jake or something."

He smirks. “Ironically, she did think it was with Jake.”

"She thought you were going on a date with Jake?"

"Yup. Thought we were finally making it official."

A smile teases the corner of my lips. "She thinks you and Jake have something going on?"

"Yeah. My whole family thinks that it's just a matter of time until I come out of the closet, no matter how many times I tell them that Jake simply isn’t my type."

I snort at that, and he smirks as he continues, “But then after calling Jake, she figured out it wasn't him, she called me to interrogate me about who I was going on a date with and involved herself in every part of my getting ready process."

“Oh.”

“I didn’t tell her your name or anything else," he says. “I know you would probably hate that.”

“I mean, it’s too early, right? This is just an experiment after all.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Experiment."

A dark look passes over his face, and it has a knot growing in my belly until I blurt out, “You know you don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Be here, going on this date with me. I get the sense that you don’t want to.”

“I wouldn’t say that," he says. “Dates just aren't something I do very often. In fact, I haven’t been on a proper date since college.”

“Seriously.”

“Yeah.”

“So how do you..” I was going to say get his needs met, but then I realized how silly and downright naive that sounds. He hears the unsaid words anyway, a roguish smile spreading across his lips. “I get by.”

I roll my eyes even though the smile has my belly flip-flopping.

“You ready?” he asks, and I nod.

He puts a hand on the small of my back, and I'm hyperaware of that hand as he leads me down the stairs to his truck and opens the door for me for good measure.

The car ride is silent for the most part. It’s not a relaxed silence like it was with Sam, and it’s not even really awkward. The only word I have to describe it is intense. I’m so intensely aware of him, of how he smells, how his hand grips the steering wheel, how he drives.

Which also means I’m aware of the vague frown on his face