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She walks out of the car before I can walk around to open the door for her, and soon, she’s next to me. She doesn’t wait for me to follow her. She wraps her hand around my wrist and pulls me in with her, her touch electric against my skin.
She’s only guiding me in, but there’s no way that she doesn’t feel something too. I want to pull away from her. This is all a little much. I’m nervous around her in a way that I haven’t been for a very long time, in a way that’s quietly unsettling.
She lets go of my hand as soon as we’re in the restaurant, the walls bright and colorful, adorned with tube neon lights. A teenager with dark blue hair and dark eyeliner flashes us their best customer service smile. “Welcome to Sweet Dreams, would you like to sample anything?“
“No,“ Trine says. “We know what we want. You like chocolate, right?“
I nod. “Yeah, I like chocolate.“
“Then we’ll have two vanilla and chocolate cones,“ she says. “One with nuts.“
“One?“
She bites down on her lower lip. “I didn’t know if you were allergic,“ she says. “And I figure, if you do like nuts, we can always swap.“
“Right.“
“So are you?“
“What?“
“Allergic.“
“Oh, no,“ I reply. “Not at all.“
“Weren’t you going to say something?“
“Sure. But I was watching you take charge first and that was…“ I’m about to say sexy, but I manage to clamp my mouth shut in time. Thankfully.
“What?“ she asks, her gaze flitting up to my face.
“Fun,“ I say, aware that she can probably see the blush on my cheeks.
The kid laughs, but they get busy making our ice creams as we sit near a window. Trine taps her fingernails against the Formica table. Now that we’re here, her mind is obviously wandering back to her mother. I can’t blame her.
“Do you want to talk about it?“
She sighs. “I don’t know how to talk about it, Father…“
“You can call me Luke,“ I say, meeting her gaze as she continues to chew on her lower lip.
“Most of the time, right?“
My breath catches in my throat as the implication in her voice makes my pulse race. “Yes,“ I say. I should look away; I should tell her we aren’t going to do anything like that ever again. But I can’t, because I want to. I need to do more than just that. Everything about the woman in front of me is driving me closer to insanity and I’m letting it. I’m letting her.
She exhales through her mouth, her fingers suddenly not tapping on the table anymore. “Listen, Luke…“
I lean in to listen, but before she can say anything, our ice cream is brought over to us and our conversation is interrupted.
It really is fantastic. She might be right; this might be the best ice cream I’ve ever had. We talk about it for a bit, until we’re both almost done and there’s a smile on her face again.
“Thank you,“ she says as she wipes her face with a paper napkin. “That made me feel a lot better.“
“For what? You paid for the ice cream.“
She laughs. “You know. The company,“ she says. “And getting me out of there, and not talking about it, even though I’m sure you want to.“
I shake my head, waving her off. “I can wait until you’re ready, or we can, you know, not talk about it at all.“
