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He wasn’t much of a five-star, fine dining kind of guy. Give him a little mom-and-pop restaurant and he’d believe any one of those thousand reviews that said they made the best chicken in all of Washington and maybe even the whole country. If the smells from the kitchen were any indication, he could easily agree.
He wasn’t worried about their stomachs. Those would be taken care of. Hewasworried about that crease in January’s brow and the way her eyes kept darting around the place. Since she had to lean in so far to say anything, she’d pretty much given up trying to talk to him. It was that loud in the place. For a little hole-in-the-wall joint, the secret was definitely out. Every booth and table were packed, and a huge line extended out the door and past the front windows. Good thing he’d done what the reviewers recommended and come early or late. In their case, late.
He very much wanted to make small talk, even if he was normally not great at it, but the roar in the place made it impossible. He didn’t want January to be uncomfortable. In a spur of the moment decision, he got up from his side of the booth. She looked at him pensively, tensing up. Did she think he was going to bail? No way. He’d come this far. It seemed almost like a dream or a fairy tale that he was here at all. When it came to January, all of him wasawake, but he still didn’t even really know how this had come about.
Leg injury. Tire. Mouse. A few agonizing days’ wait. City. This moment.
That was pretty much it, but the events didn’t knit themselves together properly in his head.
He bent down so she would hear him. “Would you mind if we shared the bench? That way we can hear each other.”
She bit down on her bottom lip, which made blood rush to his groin, and nodded. She’d curled her hair, and it was bouncy and soft looking. The chestnut gleam caught the light. She’d also put on just a bare amount of makeup and he liked the coral hue of her blush and lip gloss and the way her eyelashes looked ridiculously long and full. He liked the flowy bright green dress with the white polka dots and the little purple cardigan even more. She’d chosen bright yellow shoes. She wasn’t afraid to wear color or be loud or stand out. She shouldn’t be.
She scooted over, then reached across the table and grabbed his placemat, the knife and fork bundle, and slid his water glass over. Her smile was warm. She might have been hesitant when he’d seen her at the cabin, but it seemed like she’d decided something between then and now. When he picked her up, she had the same ready, stunning smile.
June’s smile was three times as large and her little boys were beyond cute, dancing around at the door and cheering their auntie on.
June’s husband gave him a warning look that said he might just be a brother-in-law, and Tavish might outweigh him by a good hundred or so pounds, but he wasn’t above kicking ass if he had to.
“The smells are divine,” January said, attempting conversation.
He leaned in close to her. Too close. He had to pull back.
“Yes,” he agreed, but the kitchen had nothing on her. He didn’t want to give her creep vibes. “Your sister said you work from home.”
“Oh. Yeah.” She rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched. “I do.”
“What do you do?”
“Floor plans.”
“Floor plans?” Of all the at home jobs he’d thought about, his mind whirring ever since the steak dinner at the cabin, he hadn’t thought of that.
“I design them. I’m an architectural technologist. I sell them online. Some are pre-made and some I do custom. If you knew how much some places charged for those, you’d understand why it’s a thing to buy them for cheap.”
“Makes sense. Building a house is a big commitment. You want the blueprints to be perfect, so it comes out exactly how you imagined. That’s incredible that you do that.”
“Oh.” She looked towards the wall by the booth this time. There was a picture of a chicken drum there, framed and everything. It looked like it was taken in the back kitchen, which was the best part of it. The whole place was like that. He couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be a joke or not, and that’s what made it so good. “It’s not really all that incredible. Just a few years of school and learning the software.”
“I think it takes more than that.”
“You’re probably right.” Her smile was hesitant, like she was afraid of tooting her own horn too hard. “But I was always good at math, and I learned fast. I’m not all that creative, which is why I picked floor plans and not interior design.”
“What does your house look like?”
She seemed instantly panicked, but then lost the expression fast when he smiled warmly, or at least he hoped it was warm and not weird to follow up with that question. “It’s just an apartment right now. When I got divorced, I didn’t really want anything. We had to sell the house because we couldn’t afford to buy each other out. I didn’t really care much about what I bought when I moved in. I just wanted a comfortable bed and a nice big chair to sit in and read. The rest is just thrifted. It doesn’t match, it’s not designer, and it’s not even nice for the most part. I do have a few quilts that people gave me, handmade, and some artwork that I’d collected over the years from trade shows and friends, so I kept that. If friends gave it to me, it doesn’t have bad memories attached. Actually, nothing had bad memories. I just didn’t want it. I was just done.”
“I can understand that.”
“Are you divorced too?”
She had no idea that his longest relationship was only a few nights. It got complicated when you couldn’t explain to a person that you were also a bear in your free time. Even now that they were allowed to take human mates, it was still unimaginably hard to think about how to tell January.
And he was thinking about telling her. Or, at least, he wanted to. That wanting dumped a burst of adrenaline through his veins. He could barely sit still and twitched slightly on the bench, but January didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m not, no. I can just understand that some things have an ending, and you don’t want to keep moving forward thinking about them. I understand talking about it isn’t what a person wants to be doing either. You don’t have to explain yourself. I’m sorry if I was prying.”
“No, it’s okay.” Her left eye twitched twice and he wasn’t sure if she was going to grimace or smile, but she didn’t do either. She straight-faced it. “You’re not prying. And thank you for understanding that it sucks talking about it. I’m pretty much at the point where I never want to talk about it again.”
