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“I think so. Are you ready, boo?” I ask Hayes and he raises his eyebrow at my term of endearment.
“Yeah, you go first… baby,” he says, trying out one of his own pet names.
I grin as I grab my menu and rattle off my order.
“I’ll have the bistro burger with the sweet potato fries.”
“I’ll have the same,” Hayes says and she nods, shooting him a smile but he’s too busy looking over at me to notice her.
“I’ll get that right out for you,” she tries again and I can see when she finally gets the clue and gives up on flirting with him.
We both ignore her, and I smile to myself as she turns and leaves.
“I think that she likes you.”
“I doubt it,” Hayes says and he sounds so sure of himself that it kind of breaks my heart.
He’s so positive that no one could ever like him or find him attractive that it makes me want to show him how amazing he is. I know that I barely know him, but I can tell that he’s a good one.
“So, tell me about yourself,” I say after the waitress drops off our waters.
“What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from?”
“Sequoia. You probably haven’t heard of it but it’s a small town in Southern California.”
“Yeah! It’s like an hour, hour and a half from Los Angeles, right?”
“Yeah, it’s more of a college town. My dad was a professor at the university there and my mom ran a coffee shop right off of campus.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yeah, I like the small town more and it would get pretty empty during the summer, so there weren’t any lines at the movie theater or skate park.”
“Best of both worlds then.”
“Exactly. What about you? Did you like living in Los Angeles?”
“Not really. Too many people, too much traffic, and users.”
“You like the small-town life then, huh?” he asks and I nod.
“I’d rather take it slow than live in a big city like Los Angeles.”
“Me too,” he admits.
“Here’re your burgers,” the waitress says, and I blink, looking away from Hayes’s magnetic gaze.
“This looks delicious,” I say as I grab my burger and take a bite.
I moan and Hayes freezes with his own burger halfway to his mouth. I drag the back of my hand across my mouth, wondering if I have some ketchup or something on my face. Hayes clears his throat and takes a big bite of his burger before I can ask him if there’s something on my face and so I shrug and go back to eating. The food is delicious and we both clean our plates quickly.
“What made you move to Redwood?” I ask between bites of my crème brûlée dessert.
“I was kind of bouncing around, trying to find a place that felt like home, and then I got a job at On the Rocks and found my cabin,” he says with a shrug.
“And does it feel like home?” I ask and he looks up at me.
