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He shook his head. “Found it in a drawer—while putting away clothes,” he added quickly on Carly’s look. “I wasn’t snooping.” Not that he was beyond snooping if he deemed it necessary. With Catherine, she was an open book. She told him everything. They could trust her to come to them. Tess was a little different. She was a little more secretive and selective about what she told him. She was definitely an “ask for forgiveness, not permission” type of kid.
“Well, I’m sure there’s no harm done.”
“Except that she has all of these romantic notions in her head...” he mumbled.
Carly frowned. “What do you mean? Is she starting to show interest in romance and boys?”
He laughed wryly. “No. Thank God. She’s just interested in my love life all of a sudden.”
Carly’s hand tipped over her coffee, spilling it over the counter onto his lap. “Your love life?” she asked. “Shit. Sorry.”
He jumped up quickly to save his pants as best he could as she grabbed some paper towel and started to dry up the mess. He took it from her and cleaned the side of the counter. “Not that there is one,” he said. He sighed. “She set me up on a date last night,” he said.
“With who?” Carly’s tone echoed the sentiment he’d felt thinking of her out with Sebastian. Maybe they were still on the same page of growing old alone together. Or together together... He shook his head. He couldn’t get sidetracked by those thoughts at the moment. One thing at a time.
“Dr. Ann,” he said. “When I picked her up from camp on Monday, she ambushed me into saying yes to dinner.”
“Dr. Ann ambushed you?”
“No. Tess.”
Carly frowned. “So, she wants you to date?” she asked before sipping what was left in the coffee cup.
“If only. She wants me to fall in love.”
This time, coffee sprayed from Carly’s mouth, hitting Oliver in the cheek.
“OMG,” she said, reaching forward to wipe the liquid from his face. He laughed, but when her fingers touched his skin, a warm tingling sensation had the grin dying on his lips.
She quickly pulled away, but not fast enough. There had definitely been a spark between them just now.
“Sorry... Here,” she said, handing him a towel.
He dried his face and shook his head. “Anyway, it was just awkward and weird...”
“Good,” Carly said, then blushed. “I mean, not good, but...” Her voice trailed off and she stared at the counter, avoiding his gaze. “You know what I mean.”
He didn’t, actually. “Speaking of dates...late night last night?”
Her head swung back up to look at him, curiosity on her face. “Are you implying something?”
Yes.He shook his head. “Just wondering how things are going with Stan.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Sebastian?”
He waved a hand. “Same thing.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t out with Sebastian.”
“Good,” he said before he could stop himself.
Carly shot him a look. “Good?”
“You know what I mean,” he said, throwing her words right back at her. If she couldn’t quite verbalize why it was good that he hadn’t been on a real date, he certainly couldn’t. He’d been struggling to make sense of these new emotions brewing within him for days, and it wasn’t as though he could talk to her about them.
Their gazes met and held for a long beat, before Oliver was acting solely on impulse. He couldn’t talk about it, but his body was on a mission to show her. He reached across the counter and his hands gripped the sides of her face as he leaned toward her. “I want to kiss you,” he said.
“You do?” she whispered, sounding just as confused by it as he was.
