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“You do realize we have only known each other a week, right?” I’d just hit the unlock on my car when he leaned close and my breath caught. The kiss the other night had been just a brush…
A car horn blasted, and I jerked back. Course, he jumped, too, and we both looked at the street, but it was pretty packed with lunchtime traffic. Blowing out a breath, I tried to crush the nerves fluttering through me. “We should probably get back.”
The moment had pretty much crashed with the sudden adrenaline surge.
“Yes,” he said, brushing my cheek with his knuckles before he opened the driver’s door for me. “Next time?”
Next time, what? Next time we would get a real kiss in?
Why not? “Next time.”
Wearing a wider grin, he moved to the passenger side. Back at school, I lucked right back into my spot next to Bubba’s bike. But the bell rang as we got out of the car, so we both had to hurry.
Jake was just stepping out of study hall when I got there to check in. He waited for me then we walked to the library together. I dug out my lit homework and the government reading I hadn’t done the night before. Instead of sitting across the table, Jake sat next to me foot hooked into the rung of my chair.
“How was lunch?” the quiet question pulled me out of the Federalist papers, which really weren’t riveting reading.
“It was fun,” I told him. “We got burgers…talked. It was good.” Taco Tuesday would have to wait until the following week
He nodded slowly. “Do you have a lot of homework?”
“Well, I have some reading. Didn’t get it done last night. People kept showing up.”
With a smirk, he said, “You could have kicked us out.”
“Yeah, but you brought food, and Archie brought ice cream.”
Jake snorted. “Well, if all it takes is food and ice cream, what time do you want me to come by tonight?”
“I’m going over to Bubba’s tonight. Calculus, remember?”
“Yeah, calculus takes the two of you a few hours alone.”
I wasn’t going to have this argument. “He asked me first.”
“Yeah,” Jake said, then hooked two of my fingers and tugged my hand over to hold it. His palms were a little rough and callused. His skin was warm, and his hands seemed a lot larger than mine, too. “So…”
“So?” I was not going to be doing homework. That much was clear.
“You said yes.”
All the earlier flutters at the fast food place had nothing on the jitters erupting in my system. We were going to talk about this here? In the library? Granted, we’d both been whispering, and we were in a corner away from the librarians, but still. “I did.”
His slow smile sent a thread of tension all the way through me, and I damn near squirmed in my seat. All of the guys were good looking; I’d have had to be blind and dead not to notice their attractiveness. Jake had always been more rugged than the others, with Bubba being the closest to matching him physically. I’d seen them turn their charms on other girls plenty of time, but this…
“How tired are you when you get off work?”
The question was not where I thought we were going with this. So I gave a little shrug, vividly aware of the fact he was drawing circles against my palm with his thumb. “Depends. Sometimes, if we’re really busy, I can be beat by the time I get out of there.”
“But you never work past ten, right?”
“Nope. Most of the time they try to get me out of there at nine.” It was a four-hour shift from five to nine every Wednesday and Thursday.
“Think your mom would mind if I came over after work tomorrow?”
Would she mind? Maybe. Course she’d have to be there to even know. “I don’t know. I can ask…”
“Would you?”
