Page 50 of The True-Blue Romance

“I missed you,” Lee murmurs against my mouth.

“You just saw me yesterday.”

“Too long.” Then Lee is kissing me again, backing me up against the car. We stand there kissing as the damp wind blows over us, carrying the scent of jasmine on the breeze from where it winds around the front of Lee’s house.

“Come on, we can kiss later tonight. I wanna take you out.”

“No mini golf?” Lee asks, worry on his face.

I roll my eyes affectionally. “No mini golf.”

Lee’s grin is ecstatic and fills my chest with warmth. I walk him over to the other side of my car, hand on the small of his back, and open the door to help him inside. Once Lee is buckled into the passenger seat, I gently close the door, then cross over to the driver’s seat. Lee fiddles with the radio once I’ve started the car. He’s the only person who gets free rein of the radio in my vehicle, otherwise driver picks the tunes and everyone else shuts up. But Lee puts on a playlist that we’ve curated over the years for car rides, featuring songs each of us approved.

“Can I at least know where we’re going?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

I reach over and grab his hand, tangling our fingers together over the console. “You do when it’s me doing the surprising.”

Lee looks like he’s fighting back a smile. “I guess.”

“How was your day?”

Lee shrugs and looks out the window. “I ran errands.”

I bet he saw his father and doesn’t want to tell me. I hate that I’ve made Lee feel like he needs to keep that secret from me. Like my hate for his father transcends my need to support him, which is never true. Despite the amount of hate I have for Lee’s shitty-ass father, I still have empathy and compassion for the situation. So I have to play my hand right to prevent Lee from keeping me closed off from the situation for the foreseeable future.

“How’s Buster?”

“Aragorn is a little obsessed with Buster. I let the goats out earlier today for some yard time, and Aragorn couldn’t stay away from Buster’s enclosure. I think he thinks I’m keeping Buster prisoner since he isn’t allowed yard time.”

“Well, when you say yard time, it does carry the air of prison.”

Lee laughs. “I mean literal yard time, you dope. The goats are playing in the yard.”

“I’m aware,” I say and shoot him a smirk. That gorgeous blush fills the top of Lee’s cheeks, making me want to tease him over and over so the blush never goes away.

Just out of downtown, I notice Mr. Walters’ boiled peanut stand. Grinning at Lee, I pull over and we both hop out. No harm in having a snack on the way to the date. There’s no line and the heat bugs sing in the forest on either side of the county road. Mr. Walters appears at the window with his scraggly white beard and aviator sunglasses his grandchildren no doubt bought him.

He skewers us with a look that would’ve melted us as teenagers. “Don’t you buy me out of the jalapeño peanuts. It’s gonna be a good sellin’ day because it’s hot and people are headin’ to the springs.”

“Just a small cup, then,” Lee says quietly, disarming Mr. Walters like he does everyone. “Wouldn’t want you to lose too much business because of us.”

Mr. Walters scoffs and disappears into his little shed. A few moments later he appears with two cups but only charges me for one, returning more change than I need after I’ve paid. He disappears again, probably into the coolness of the shed, and Lee and I wander toward the car. Looking at him now, he reminds me of who he’d been when I’d just gotten back from college. Back when life was unfurling a little differently before us, like the world was ours for the taking. He cracks a peanut with his teeth and spits out the shells, and goddamn, I should not find that sexy.

He grins over at me, all teeth. “This won’t ruin dinner, will it?”

“Boiled peanuts are a snack, like celery. They can’t fill you up.”

“True,” Lee agrees. We stand outside the SUV for a minute, absorbing the air, and I very much want to kiss Lee, but I’m also aware that not everyone in this small town knows he’s out. Not that Mr. Walters would have a problem, considering his daughter is married to a woman and lives “up north.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Lee asks.

“’Cause I love you,” I answer quickly, just before popping a peanut into my mouth.

Lee blushes and eats another one of his peanuts. Once we’ve had our fill, we hop back into the car, glancing over at each other like we’ve shared some sort of joke. And maybe we have.