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“And you expect me to believe that the reason you werein the areahas nothing to do with a certain blonde you seem rather smitten with?”
“Why ever would you think something like that?” I grin.
“I knew it!” She smiles. “I knew you were downplaying your date last weekend. Trying to act like it was no big deal. Don’t think Sutton didn’t tell me about the little favor he did for you by letting you take her to the Hasten project.”
“She wanted to see the city. Couldn’t think of a better way to show her.” I lift one shoulder in a half-shrug, purposely playing coy.
“Why are you being so secretive all of a sudden? First, you give me short one-word answers about your date, not really telling me anything. And now, you just happen to be in the area where Kaia both lives and works, and you expect me to believe you being here has nothing to do with her. I know you a lot better than that. Now spill.”
“There’s nothing to spill.”
“Remington Jonathan, you are a shit liar.”
“Language.” I tsk. “There are little people present.”
“Oh, shut it. She’s too young to know what I’m saying. Why won’t you tell me anything? You asked for my help and now you’re just cutting me out. If I remember right, I’m a big reason why you got her to agree to a date to begin with.” She huffs, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“I took her to lunch.” I finally give, deciding perhaps I’ve screwed with her long enough. “And for the record, I wasn’t purposely keeping anything from you. I just didn’t want to hash out the details of my date in front of the parentals. You know my mom. If she gets even an inkling that this could actually be something...”
“She’ll hound you about meeting her until you have no choice but to introduce them, and you don’t want to come on too strong.” She finishes the thought for me, knowing my mother well.
“Exactly.” I nod. “We’ve been on one date. And you see how my mother reacted when I told her about that. If I tell her she’s agreed to another, I’ll never get her off my back.”
“You asked her on another date?” Her smile grows impossibly wide.
“She told me on Saturday that her favorite movie isThe Wizard of Oz,and I just happened to find a dinner theater doing a performance of it, and I might have bought tickets.”
“When is it?”
“Next month.” I brace for her reaction.
“Next month?” She damn near tips out of her seat she leans forward so far. “You must really like this girl.”
“I thought that much was pretty obvious.” I snort.
“Yeah, but I’ve never known you to plan anything that far ahead, let alone for a woman you barely know. Hell, I’ve never known you to go on a real date, much less two. Let me go out on a limb and say she didn’t know you were going by the office today either, which means you surprised her at work and took her to lunch.”
My smile must say it all because I can’t say Aspen has ever looked at me the way she’s looking at me right now.
“You really, really like this girl,” she amends.
“I really do.” I finally let myself admit out loud. “I don’t know how to describe it. She just makes me feel...”
“Happy?” Aspen guesses.
“Yeah. And weirdly excited. Like, I feel like a fucking giddy teenager whenever she’s around. That probably sounds ridiculous.”
“Not at all. I actually understand what you mean because that’s exactly how your brother made me feel. Hell, he still makes me feel that way. Like I’m floating on a cloud.”
“I can’t remember ever being so instantaneously drawn to someone. Like the second she rounded that corner and ran into me, I knew. I knew I had to know her.”
“Again, I totally get it. I felt the same the first time I saw Sutton.”
“You really did love him all those years, didn’t you?” I ask a question I wouldn’t have been able to ask five years ago. Mainly because I wouldn’t have wanted the answer.
“From that very first moment. I still remember what he was wearing. The way he smelled. How I felt when his eyes met mine, like the whole world had just opened up beneath me.”
“You knew that quickly.” It’s not a question.
