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“Yes. Thank you.” He sets me down and grabs a pillow from the other end. I watch as he reclines my section, and then places the pillow under my ankle. It’s odd to have him here in my home, in my space, and to have him taking care of me. He could have very easily just dropped me off, but instead, he’s making sure I’m comfortable. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“I’ll be right back.” He disappears outside, closing the door behind him. He’s barely gone when he’s pushing back through the front door. My purse, lunch bag, our drinks, and our food are in his hands. “Okay to just set these here?” he asks, pointing to the coffee table.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Here.” He hands me a tea. “It’s the best sweet tea you will ever drink.”
“I doubt that. I’m from Georgia. Nobody makes tea like they do in the South.”
“Just try it,” he urges.
Wanting to see what the fuss is all about and to prove him wrong, I place my straw in the cup and take a hefty drink. It’s good. “It’s good, but not Georgia good,” I tell him.
“How about it’s the best sweet tea on the West Coast?” He smirks.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I joke and he grins. “Now, what about this burger you raved about?”
“This one is yours, and here are your fries.”
“Thank you.” I place them on my lap, unwrap the burger, and take a big bite. My hand covers my mouth while I chew because I literally bit off more than I could chew, and he doesn’t need to see all that. “Oh my God,” I say when I finally swallow. “That’s incredible.”
“Told you. Want to know what else is incredible?” He doesn’t wait for my reply as he continues. “That you eat real food.”
“As opposed to eating fake food?” I ask, taking another bite.
He grins. “No, as opposed to ‘oh, just a salad for me,’” he says, pitching his voice to be more feminine.
“Umm… was that supposed to be me?”
“No, but that’s what I’m used to. Explain that to me. Why do women not eat in front of men? You have to eat to live, so… what gives?”
“I can only assume they’re nervous or trying to impress you. Me, on the other hand, I’m neither,” I say, taking another bite. If I thought he was being real about this “let me take you to dinner” thing, that it was more than just the chase, I might be nervous too. However, he’s not, and this is the only dinner he’s getting. I’ve seen the women on his arm, the models, the actresses. I’m nowhere in their league. That’s not a dig at myself, just stating the facts. He plays on and off the field, from what I’ve read, and I turned him down. I’m probably the only woman in America to do that. I’ve stunned his ego, so now he has to prove he can get me to say yes.
“Maybe that’s what it is,” he mutters.
“What?”
“I’m sure that’s what it is.”
We finish our burgers, his two to my one, and start on our fries. “Can you hand me my purse?” I ask. He does as I ask and places it next to me on the couch. Pulling out my wallet, I grab a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and hand it to him.
“What’s that?” He looks at the ten-dollar bill as if it offended him.
“For dinner.”
“I’m not taking your money, Emma.”
“Please.” I try to bat my eyelashes to see if he’ll cave. No such luck.
“No. Put that away.” His voice is stone serious, which is not something I’m used to seeing with him, so I nod and put the ten back in my wallet.
“Thank you for dinner. Thank you for bringing me home, taking care of things at the shelter, all of it. Thank you, Landon.”
“Was that so hard?” he asks.
“And to think I was starting to believe you might not be that bad.”
“Hey, I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Oh, yeah, and what reputation is that?”
“With the ladies.” He bounces his eyebrows up and down and I try my best not to laugh, but I can’t hold it in.
“Laugh it up. Your boy’s got skills.”
“No. Just no,” I sputter with laughter. When I finally stop laughing, I finish off my fries and throw my trash in the bag. “That hit the spot, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He gathers all of his trash, shoves it into the bag, and stands.
“Where are you going?” I ask, craning my neck to watch him as he walks into the kitchen.
“Looking for the trash can,” he calls back. A few minutes later, he’s back sans bag of trash, but holding an ice pack from the fridge and a towel from the drawer beside the stove. He places the towel over my ankle and the ice pack on top of it. “That okay?” He peers up at me.
