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I smiled a little at how cute he was. “Probably.”
“Fine,” he said. “What’s your last name?”
I paused for a second on that one. “Thompson.” If he had my last name, he could look me up, and a simple online search would lead him to a lot of information about me I didn’t want him to know. Not yet, anyway.
“Okay, Dexter Thompson,” he said. I flinched a little at the use of my full name, but he went on. “What doyoulike to do in your spare time? I know, I know, I already asked, but you said work and that still doesn’t count.”
“What is this, an inquisition?” I couldn’t help but laugh at his intensity.
Bennett sighed and set his shoulders firmly. “I just want to get to know you.”
With a nod, I took his hand in mine again. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Getting to know each other, a little at a time? Now let’s go inside. I’m hungry and I bet you are, too.”
I got out of the car and let Bennett into the restaurant, giving my name to the host when we entered.
“Right this way, Mr. Thompson.”
Bennett shot me a look, eyebrows raised, and followed me to our table. When we sat, he lowered his voice to a hiss. “You know the staff?” I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get a word out, Bennett held up a hand. “No, don’t say it.”
I grinned and kept my mouth shut until the server came to take our order. “What can I get for you two?”
After we ordered, Bennett turned to me with a grin on his face. “I can’t believe how you just…” He waved his hand in the air a little. “You know everyone.”
I shrugged. “And I want to keep getting to know you.”
The pink shade on his cheeks was back as he looked at the table shyly and I reached across the table to take his hand in mine. I knew I couldn’t keep holding him at an arm’s length if I was truly interested in him, and I definitely was interested in him.
“You know, I didn’t always dream of being an investment analyst.”
Bennett’s eyebrows rose, and a grin crept over his face. “No?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to be a boat captain.”
He brought a fist to his mouth and suppressed a laugh. “A boat captain? What kind of boat captain? Like in the military or something?”
I shook my head and smirked. “A cruise ship.”
He did laugh at that. “You wanted to be a cruise ship captain as a kid? What kind of kid knows enough about cruise ships to want to captain one?”
“Me, I guess. My parents took me on a few cruises when I was young, before my dad passed. They were workaholics and I rarely ever saw my parents, but they took a week or two every year to take me on a trip. I was obsessed with boats from a young age. You know how some kids are into dinosaurs or trains? I was into boats, so they started taking me on cruises. That’s when I decided I’d be a boat captain one day.”
He squeezed my hand. “That’s really cute.”
“Thanks. What was your obsession when you were a kid?”
Without missing a beat, he spoke. “Dinosaurs.”
“And what’s your favorite dinosaur? Do you still have one?”
He tilted his head to the side while he thought. “Pachycephalosaurus. You know, the kind with the thick skull with the spikes all around it? That one.”
“Why that one?”
“They’re a big mystery. I mean, obviously we don’t know everything aboutanythingfrom that long ago, but I always liked that the Pachy had secrets. There are a lot of theories about why they had the thick skull and the special bones, but nobody knows for sure. Same with what they ate. There are theories, but nothing’s certain. I liked that. I always felt like everyone knew everything about me as a kid, you know? Or they thought they did. I wanted to feel like I had secrets, too. Like I could be special, no matter what everyone thought they knew about me.”
“I think you’re special,” I murmured.
Bennett grinned. “Thanks. I definitely wasn’t very special back then. Single mom, grew up poor. Everyone knew who we were and where we came from. It was tough being a gay kid under those circumstances.”
