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Isla tilted her head, and her eyebrows drew together. “I meant that he doesn’t look alive. He looks like a real mannequin.”
I laughed. “That’s what I thought at first, too, but he’s just a really good model. He isperfectfor his job.”
“O…kay.” Isla drew out the word. “And you said you talked to him yesterday? And he…talked back?”
I started to laugh again but stopped at the serious expression on her face. “Isla, of course! We set up a whole plan for lunch today.” Just as I said that, my model made a small wave at me, his lips tilting up in the ghost of a smile. “See? He just waved.”
Isla whipped around, but he’d stopped waving.
“You just missed it.”
She shrugged and smiled. “Maybe it’s the lighting and being in the middle of all those special effects. He doesn’t look quite human.”
I exhaled heavily. “Yeah, I know. But he’s a really excellent human.”
“Let’s hope he’s got the brains and personality to match. I’ve got to go.” She gave me a quick squeeze. “Call me later and tell me all about lunch.”
“Okay, I will!”
Isla headed for the subway, and I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes until the curtains closed and my model and I would be starting our date—and our possibly beautiful future life—together.
Chapter Five
The curtain had hardly closed before I was sprinting inside the store, dodging the streams of Bainbridge’s customers who’d procrastinated their Christmas shopping. My family had put a moratorium on presents this year on account of Lindsay’s wedding. She’d be the only one receiving gifts. Unsurprisingly, she was just fine with that. Presumably Troy was getting presents too, but since Lindsay would be one of them, I didn’t envy him.
“Hi!” I skidded to a stop in the hallway between the display window and the storage room. Tanner was closing the door to the window display behind him. No one else was in sight.
“Well, hello there.” A bright smile lit his eyes. I felt warmed all over just knowing I was the one who’d put it there. “Are you ready for our lunch?”
“Very! Where would you like to go? I was thinking maybe a deli. There are so many good ones—famous ones—and we don’t really have those in Atlanta, well at least not like you do. Or we could go for Italian…or pizza! I love pizza. New York pizza is famous all over the world. I’ve heard you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten New York pizza. It’s something about the local water they use in the dough—it’s like nowhere else. Do you know you can even buy it to make your own pizza? The water. Yeah, they ship it! You just have to—” I stopped babbling when I realized Tanner was just staring at me with a pleasant expression, waiting for me to finish.
“Sorry.”
“No! Not at all! I want to try all those things as well.” He ran a hand through his hair and gave me a sheepish expression. “It’s just that I already arranged lunch for us today.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet!” I gushed. I glanced over my shoulder. “Does the store have some kind of super exclusive dining room or something?”
“It’s definitely exclusive. And intimate. Here, follow me.” He took my hand, and my heart revved with the excitement of being with him, touching him, and being led to our mystery lunch location—across the hall.
He stopped in front of the closed door to the storage room with an expectant smile. We were standing two feet from where we’d started. Tanner knocked three times on the door, waited, and a single knock rapped back. He raised his eyebrows at me with an excited look. He was having far too much fun. He opened the door, holding it wide for me.
The fluorescent lights were off, and tiny fairy lights were strung around a cleared center area in which stood a small table covered by a crisp, white linen tablecloth, flanked by two wrought iron bistro chairs.
“How lovely!” I said and stepped toward the chair on the right.
“Why, thank you!” Faye emerged from the shadows right in front of me and beamed. I jumped.
“Hello, Faye.” I made my greeting warm to make up for almost leaping out of my shoes at her sudden appearance. “Will you be joining us?”
“Oh, no!” She giggled and put up a beautifully manicured hand to cover her mouth. Her nails were a shimmery powder blue. “I’m just helping with the setup. You two will have plenty of time together alone today—there’s no planning meeting here this afternoon.”
“Great, thanks.”
She led us over to the table and pulled my chair out for me as Tanner took his seat. She wheeled over a bottle of champagne chilling in a silver ice bucket and two covered dishes. “Enjoy!” She disappeared faster than I could thank her.
“This is nice,” I said, looking around. “You were right. It’s very intimate.” The fairy lights transformed the room from a dull place for storage to an enchanted oasis—the perfect setting for a new romance. “You’ll have to thank her for me.”
“I will,” he promised. His hand hovered over the cover on his plate. “Should we peek?”
