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“I don’t feel sorry for you! Okay, I felt a little sorry for you today, because I knew you’d be hungover and maybe mortified—”
“Maybe,” she scoffed.
“But...can I be honest?” Her flat mouth told him what she thought of that question. “When I met you, I thought you were someone else. Some high-maintenance city girl who’d sneer at a pair of hiking boots unless they were Burberry.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. “I passed as a high-maintenance Manhattan girl?”
“Yes.” He gestured toward her plate. “Until you ordered an enchilada platter bigger than mine.”
She growled, “Shut up. I needed it.”
“I know you did. I’m just saying that you’re nothing like I thought you were. You’re funny and smart and down-to-earth. And I like the way you get shy sometimes.”
“Oh.” She was blushing again.
“And you’re beautiful, of course.”
“You don’t have to say that, Gabe.”
He drew his chin in in shock. “I’m not just saying that.”
“I can pull off cute on a good day. That’s it.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
She nodded, then carefully chewed a bite of enchilada Suiza before setting her fork down again. “I’m not good at graciously accepting compliments. You can add that to your impressions of me.”
“Not like me,” Gabe said. “When you said I was gorgeous, I just accepted that you knew what you were talking about.”
“You’re never going to drop that,” she moaned.
“Never. Will you go out with me?”
She glanced around, her eyes darting from him to the table next to him and then the front door. “Go where?”
“We could go for an evening hike sometime. Or we could go to dinner.” He waited until she met his gaze again. “We could count this.”
She swept another nervous look over the room. “I don’t think we could. I’m wearing flip-flops.”
“I think that still counts. To make it official, we could go do something highbrow afterward. There’s a historical talk at the museum tonight. We might have missed it, though. Still, I bet some of the art galleries are open. We could go nod and murmur at the art.”
She watched him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed with thought. She cocked her head a little. Gabe tried to look sincere and patient, even though he felt like squirming. “Or we could get ice cream,” she finally said.
Hiking, enchiladas, ice cream. Maybe she was the perfect girl. Maybe he was in big trouble.
***
CHAPTER SEVEN
VERONICAWONDEREDIFshe could die from blushing. She hadn’t been lying when she’d called him beautiful. Or gorgeous. Or sweet. Gabe MacKenzie was a fucking dreamboat and she was on a date with him. An embarrassingly honest date.
They strolled down the boardwalk with their ice-cream cones and every time her shoulder brushed his arm, she blushed. It was dark now, at least. And probably too cold for ice cream, but she didn’t think that was why her nipples were hard.
God.
Maybe he’d been joking about the camping, but the idea intrigued her. What would that be like? To go camping with a hot guy? To be totally secluded in the pitch-black night, surrounded by wolves and bears and all sorts of terrifying things? Separate tents or not, surely she’d end up in his sleeping bag. She shivered at the idea of him touching her. She hardly knew him, but she liked the thought. It was strange, this awareness. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt like this before.
“I’ve been to sleepaway camp,” she blurted out. “I don’t want you to think I don’t have any experience.”
