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When the next song plays, I burst out laughing. “‘Dicked Down in Dallas.’ I don’t know who sings it, but I know that I can.” She laughs and sings a few lines, and I can’t help but join her.
“Okay, okay,” she says, taking a deep breath and wiping the tears from her eyes from laughter. “I need to step up my game.”
“Okay, I don’t know the name of the song, but I can tell it’s Metallica.”
“Correct. ‘Unforgiven,’” she tells me.
I nod, letting the beginning chords register in my mind. “I got it,” I tell her, hearing the lyrics in my head.
“Okay. Try this one.” She taps at the screen, and the music beings to play once again.
“‘Edge of Seventeen,’ Stevie Nicks.”
“Shit, okay. Let’s go again.” Over the next hour, she’s not able to stump me. I know the lyrics, and sometimes the artist and sometimes the title, and even both more often than I thought that I would. “I concede to the master.” She bows her head, handing me my phone.
“Told you that I was good.” I grin. “Now, eat up so you can pick a movie.”
“Why don’t we watch while we eat?”
“Anything you want is fine with me.” I hand her Declan’s iPad and show her the app. “Pick whichever one you want.”
“What do you feel like watching?” she asks, taking the iPad and scrolling.
“You.”
“Come on, be serious.”
“I am. Do you really think that I’m going to waste time watching whatever comes across that screen when I can be watching you? Not likely.”
“I… I don’t know what to say to that,” she admits.
“You don’t say anything. You pick a movie, curl up next to me, and let me watch you.”
“Are you aware that makes you sound like a creeper?” She’s teasing, and the tiny lift at the corner of her mouth and the sparkle in her eyes tell me so.
I shrug. “I’ll own it. Pick us a movie, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
Jade
Scrolling through the movie choices, I have to bite down on my cheek to keep from smiling. This is already the best date I’ve ever been on. I can’t believe that he went to all of this trouble and even enlisted the help of his best friend and brothers to make this night happen.
“I think we’re going to go with a classic,” I tell him. I tap the screen to select the movie and hand the iPad back to him.
“Footloose.” He chuckles. “I’ve seen this one so many times.” I’m ready to tell him we can watch something else, but when he looks up and is wearing a devilish grin, I stop myself. “You’re making it easy on me, sweetheart. I might have grown up in a house full of men, but my dad doted on my mom, and well, that means my brothers and I did as well. I’ve watched many chick flicks in my day.”
“We can pick something else,” I say, finding my words.
“Nope. This just means I can watch you all night and still discuss the movie after.” He winks, and my belly swarms with butterflies.
I watch as he uses his phone to turn off the music and connects the iPad to the projector. I’m not sure how it all works, but when the opening credits of Footloose appear on the screen, I smile.
“I tested this at least a dozen times,” he confesses. “I didn’t want to get you here under the premise of dinner and a movie and not be able to deliver. This was the first thing set up today because it was the most technical.”
“It’s a sweet setup.”
“They did great, but don’t tell them that I said that.” He laughs.
“You’re lucky to have them.”
He nods. “Yeah, they can annoy the hell out of me, but I would throw hands for them any day of the week.”
“I always wanted a sibling.”
“I can share mine with you,” he says. His voice is soft and holds so much conviction that it makes me think his words hold a different meaning. “Eat up,” he says, sliding the rest of my food my way and nodding toward the bowl of fruit between us.
My stomach is a mess of nervous excitement, but I manage to finish the rest of my sandwich, eat a few chips and a few pieces of fruit before waving the white flag. Orrin quickly cleans up, tossing everything back into the cooler.
“Beer? Wine? Water?” he asks.
“Just water, please.”
He nods, pulls out a bottle of water, and wipes it off with a napkin before handing it to me.
We go back to watching the movie. Sitting outside beneath the stars, on a mountain of blankets and pillows, watching one of my favorite movies is not where I thought this night would lead, but I couldn’t be happier that it did.
I shift, needing a new position, and feel his hand on my arm. I turn to look at him, and his eyes bore into mine. “Everything okay?” I ask when he continues to watch me.
