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She stopped short, any humor in her face now gone. “I’m backing you into a corner?”
I sighed. I was shit at communicating. “Let me try again. I don’t know what to say, okay? I want to say the right things but end up screwing up and saying the wrong thing no matter what.”
“I get that.” Her tone was so simple, so sure, and the softness in her gaze seemed so reassuring where a moment before, it challenged me.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing either. My turn. Start over.”
When she smiled, it reminded me of our time at the airport bar, when I realized I could be me with her, so I clung to the comfort. “How about this? Neither of us flirts, and if we do, we have to explain what made us break.”
Christie’s smile widened, and just like that, things felt okay again. No obligations, no preconceptions, just us. We talked more then about her job, about James, and even a little about Darlene. Knowing I was a divorcee, I wasn’t sure how she would respond, but it didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, for whatever reason, it seemed to encourage her.
“So I know you struggled a lot to find work, but what made you start your own business?”
“I’d done a lot of yard work for my dad when I was in high school. He actually started the business but let it go when it was time to retire. At the time, I wanted nothing to do with it, so the name drifted to nothing. He could have sold it, but he’d invested well, I guess.”
“Do you do any of that?”
I laughed. “No. Not my thing. But I definitely needed something. It wasn’t long after that Darlene found out she was pregnant.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s scary.”
“Scary’s a good word for it.” I chuckled, twirling my fork around to collect the crumbs from my sandwich into a pile. “I had been doing this guy’s yard—old long-time customer of my dad’s—and when I brought it up with him, he kind of got me started. Paid me almost twice my dad’s rates and mentioned me to most of the guys he golfs with. After a couple of them hired me on, they gave me steady work until I got more referrals from them.”
“Impressive.” She had folded her hands together and rested her chin on the small fist. Her gaze looked somewhere, not sure where. I wondered what she was thinking, or maybe I wondered what she was thinking of what I’d told her.
“I was pretty blessed, to say the least.”
“Blessed is a good word for it.”
Christie looked up at me, and we smiled. I couldn’t take my eyes off the light it brought to her eyes, her face. The bar lights hadn’t done her justice; she truly was beautiful.
“What?”
The word knocked me out of my own head, and I blinked back to attention. “What?”
She pointed her fork toward me. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You had a look, and I want to know what it was.”
“I just thought... you’re beautiful.”
She sputtered out the food remaining in her mouth, her hand clapping against her lips as her eyes bugged out of her head. I scrambled for a napkin but couldn’t find it amid my laughter. Her face reddened, and it only made me laugh harder.
She found the napkin instead and picked up the pieces she’d sent across the table, and I swiped at the bit that landed on my plate before she could realize it. I didn’t know her well but imagined she was the type to feel extra embarrassed for something like that.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “You mean you try to do that sometimes?”
Christie’s glare was something I could get behind. It made my stomach swirl, and the feeling traveled down south. I raised my brows in a challenge.
“Do you?”
“No!” she said, then pretended to throw something at me. “No, I would not do that on purpose. To anyone. That’s gross.”
“Oh, so you like to spit it directly into someone’s mouth then? Not on them, just—”
