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Once I turn onto my street, I relax a little. No more cars driving around me as if they were at the Daytona 500.
This isn’t sunny Florida, it’s freezing Vermont.
I open the garage door, drive the car inside, and I spothimleaning against the doorframe of the entrance. He’s wearing a gray Henley shirt, the sleeves already rolled over his tattooed, corded arms.
“Hi,” I greet him, getting out of the car with the small pizza box and bag of ice cream.
“The roads are terrible,” he says, taking me into his arms and giving me a hug. “You should’ve called me to come get you.”
“I can drive on icy roads.”
“It’s not about you, but the other drivers.” He takes the shopping bag from me. “You went to the creamery to stock up for the winter?”
“Nah, I just bought a few flavors that might not be there tomorrow.” I sigh and unzip my jacket. “Why are you here?” I ask, which is better thandon’t you understand that I can’t hang out with you anymore?
“You’ve been dodging my calls and messages all day long. I thought it’d be best to check on what’s going on with you. Since it was too cold to wait outside, I let myself in. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“It’s not. That’s why you have a key.”
I shed my coat, take off my snow boots, and stare at the dining room table. “I have pizza.”
“You only bought a personal-sized pizza,” he says.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s Kentbury. We have a pretty good communication system in place—it’s better than Twitter.” He winks. “Almost as effective as Instagram or text messages. Mrs. Bowman called to alert me that you were driving back home. She chided me for letting you drive on the ice.”
I sneer. “I. Can. Drive.”
“That’s not the point. She told me that you had gone to buy pizza right after—but a small one.”
“Is that why you brought dinner?”
“No, I already had it—and she knew that too.” He chuckles. “She thinks I’m a pretty thoughtful guy.”
“How does she know that you had dinner?” I groan. This wouldn’t be happening in New York.
“It’s Kentbury,” he repeats, which must be the reason why everyone in town knows that there’s a big dinner on my table—for the two of us.
“Let’s sit down, the food is getting cold.”
“I canceled,” I mumble, staring at my table.
“Lee, what did I do?” he asks, frustration dripping from every word.
“Nothing,” I say dryly, keeping myself strong because my heart is melting at the sight of the fancy dinner that he brought.
Everything that I love from André’s cuisine is here. Smoked salmon, potato cakes with herbed crème fraîche, shrimp pasta, and cucumber farro salad. There’s a bottle of wine and glasses, and he set up the table. With a couple of candles, this would be considered a romantic dinner. This is the part of the night when my heart beats fast with hope.
In a couple of hours, when Landon reminds me that I’m just one of the guys, it’ll be teary, broken, and hurt. Like me, my heart just doesn’t get it. This is precisely why I’m in a rut. Landon does something sweet, I fall in love a little more, and then he stomps on all of my dreams.
“I pissed you off. Just tell me what I did so I can fix it.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“I know you,” he says quietly.
“You do?” I ask skeptically, laughing on the inside.
