It might sound strange to people outside of her life with Aidan, but it was what it was.
“I’m good with anything,” she answered him and felt herself swagger a little. “Surprise me.”
Later she’d realize that the slight lift of his chin and way his eyes narrowed a bit were all good.
He just didn’t know how to read her reaction. Or her answer.Maybe he’d had some of the same problems with the opposite sex that she’d had on her own.
“All right,” he nodded, “I will.”
Chapter Three.
WAYNE
In the time it took to drop off the donations and taking her to her apartment to change clothes, Wayne had decided against a score of restaurants or more. It wasn’t that the restaurants weren’t good. They were all amazing. He just didn’t want to set the wrong tone.
The last time he’d taken someone to dinner for a date had been... years ago.
At first, because he was in the NFL, he lacked time or the interest in dealing with public speculation into his life. Now, he was still recognized from time to time out and about without his Carvers Polo, so the last thing he wanted to do was have people coming up to the table and making Avery uncomfortable.
Avery.
Her name made him smile. Why? He had no idea. It just did.
Waiting outside of Avery’s apartment building, a structure which had a style that she called ‘former mid-century sanatorium chic,’ he was staring at his phone looking for a restaurant with the right atmosphere for dinner.
Mama Antonio’s caught his eye. So did the picture up on Yelp. The warm colors and candlelight looked like the right place to go. A quick perusal of the menu and photos from other diners made him smile. Yes. This was the right place to take Avery.
His phone screen lit up with a text, and he looked down at the screen.
AVERY: Changed! Looking halfway decent. If you’re still interested in dinner, I’m on my way down.
He shook his head and smiled at her words. She struck him as a woman who was pretty confident, but a lot of people put different faces forward when meeting people. When he’d met her, she was a steadfast supporter of her son’s. She wasn’t blind to his challenges, but she was also someone who looked for solutions.
That didn’t mean that she was the same as a person. When she was by herself. He just knew that what he’d seen so far interested him. A lot. He looked down to put his phone on the console and stepped out to greet her and open the passenger door for her. That’s when he realized he was still wearing the shirt he’d had on to go to the Central Food Bank.
It was a perfectly nice shirt, but for a dinner date? Especially if he didn’t want people to take one look at him and see the Carvers logo over his left breast or his sleeve, he’d need to change his shirt at least. Grumbling at how he’d overlooked something like that, he pushed open the door and closed it behind him.
He dropped his keys into his back pants pocket and moved around to the passenger side of the Gladiator. He had a suit jacket and a button down hanging on a hook. He didn’t reach for the jacket, that would look a little stuffy, he decided. He reached for the navy-blue button down that he liked to wear under the dark charcoal grey suit jacket.
Undoing the top button, which was the only button he’d closed when he’d put it on the hanger, he slid the shirt off and draped it over the arm of the seat and reached for the hem of his polo shirt. He made fairly quick work of stripping it off,even though his sleeves caught on his muscles. It wasn’t really difficult normally, but he was trying to rush and do it before Avery got down to the parking lot.
Which meant that his arms were moving and his muscles were flexing which was making things a little problematic. The feel of the air against his back was refreshing and helped cool his skin. Dropping the shirt onto the back seat, he reached for his button down and put one arm into a sleeve.
“Hey, you’re still here. I-”
He turned and stared. She was wearing a dress that had his attention.
With the door open in the car there was light enough for him to see that it was more of a dark wine color. There weren’t any decorations on it, just fabric that looked like it would be slick and soft under his hands.
And the simple design showed off the fit figure he’d known she would have.
He was careful to keep the focus of his gaze above the neckline of her dress, but there was no way to completely ignore the graceful drape of the fabric across the tops of her breasts.
Wayne was glad for the darkness around them because he was hoping she wouldn’t notice just how good she looked in that dress.
She smiled at him and he smiled back. She rubbed her lips together and that’s when he noticed that she was wearing color on her lips.
“You look... beautiful.” He meant it and more. There was just something about Avery that made every part of him stand up and take notice.Everypart of him.
