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“I was just thinking about how I never thought I’d ever see you smile when we first met.” Alissa laughed, running her fingers along the soft threads of his sweater underneath his coat. “You were so uptight!”
Dane chuckled, then smiled, one side of his mouth creeping up higher than the other. “Me? Uptight? I have no idea what made you form that impression.”
Alissa snorted and Dane broke out into laughter again.
“I can see why we butted heads,” Alissa said.
“Clearly we worked it out.” He slid his hand down her arm, lacing his fingers in hers. “Want to take a walk?”
“I’d love that.”
Alissa savored the warmth of his hand as they started toward the boardwalk, which was lit up by both the moon and lamps. A few other people were out too, some couples like them and some groups of friends. Alissa was glad Dane had suggested they walk. She didn’t want this date to end just yet.
The moon gleamed over the water and clouds drifted across the sky, creating a dreamy scene that only added to the fluttery lightness in her chest. It was like she was in a movie.
Dane had the pensive look on his face that Alissa was very used to. She let him gather his thoughts instead of jumping in and distracting him.
“It’s funny that you say I’m uptight. If you asked teenaged me if I was like that, he would have laughed,” Dane said.
“Seriously?” Alissa tried to imagine him as a teenager. “I would have imagined you as the brooding, angsty type, locked in his room with a bunch of books and journals.”
“Iwasusually in my room with books and journals and loud music, but I was pretty carefree, at least in comparison to now.” He squeezed her hand, almost unconsciously. “My dad was the rigid and serious one, so I didn’t want to be like that. I always wished he’d loosen up and have more fun like other dads.”
Alissa nodded. Her parents weren’t like that at all, but she understood how stifling that could be.
“I never saw myself becoming like him,” Dane continued. “But then I woke up one day and realized that all the work and my ambitions had turned me into him. The weight of all those responsibilities was heavier than I thought.”
“I bet it was stressful. There were probably a billion more moving parts to a large paper like that, and you had to be responsible for all of them.”
Alissa couldn’t imagine working on something that big. She’d miss the closeness that came with working on such a small publication.Epichad felt huge too and she had been so disconnected from her coworkers that getting to know them was an extra job in itself.
“It was.” Dane gently pulled Alissa to the side so a biker could pass. “No wonder I was so cranky all the time. Once I was staying late and groaned just like my dad did whenever he was dealing with something frustrating. It scared the crap out of me.”
“I bet. As much as we say we won’t turn into our parents, we always do in some ways,” Alissa said.
“True. He’s a good man, but even now that he’s retired, he’s stuck in his routine.” Dane nudged Alissa. “I probably would have gone down that road too if you hadn’t come along and pulled the rug out from under me. It’s hard to be crabby and rigid when you’re so optimistic and passionate.”
Alissa blushed, her smile turning shy. “Really?”
“Yes.”
Despite the warmth filling her chest, a cold breeze made her shiver. Dane slid his arm around her shoulders without skipping a beat. He was warm and smelled clean, like fresh laundry. It was such a comfortable, natural gesture, and that realization made her heart race. How had they gone from butting heads to feeling exactly right?
Alissa slipped closer to him, setting aside her fears for now. She didn’t want to ruin this moment with doubts and anxiety about things that might never come to pass.
They walked along the boardwalk, chatting about things they saw when the moment felt right and embracing the comfortable silences that came in between.
Soon the chill got to be too much, even with Dane’s warmth cocooning Alissa, they headed back toward the parking lot near The Crab. Once the cars were in sight, their steps slowed, like they were trying to drag out the last moments of this date as long as they could.
Alissa glanced up at Dane, wondering if their post-dinner walk and their reluctance to end the date meant that he wanted a second one. She definitely did, but she didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself.
“This is me,” Alissa said, stopping next to her sedan. “I had a nice time.”
“I did too.” Dane slid his hand down her arm and intertwined his fingers in hers.
He leaned in and kissed her again. The second kiss was even better than the last, soft and sweet. Alissa had already grown addicted to how nice he smelled up close, and knew she’d probably sniff her coat to see if his cologne lingered on hers when she got home.
She could have stayed here in the parking lot, safe in his arms for hours, but it was late and they had work to do tomorrow. He squeezed her hand and stepped back.
