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She nodded, her mouth now full of food. “Mm, I am.” She licked her lips, which distracted him so completely, the world around her went white for a moment. As the blue bled back into the sky, Ty blinked. “It’s on Friday. You could come if you wanted.”
“I’ll look at my schedule,” he said. “But the whale watching sounds good to me too.” He wasn’t sure what this was, if it was anything. Sage didn’t seem like the type of woman to want to play games, or keep things too casual, or be afraid of jumping into something real. But then again, he wasn’t sure what he wanted either. He was drawn to her, that was undeniable. There was something about her spirit, her kindness, and her openness that made him want to be around her, to know her better.
She was so different than Gloria, and that intrigued him.
“Yeah,” she said, glancing away as she picked up the first half of her sandwich. “I’m excited for the whales.”
“You’ve never been whale watching before?” The wind practically blew his question away, but Ty simply turned his face into it. He loved the beach breeze with his whole heart, and he couldn’t imagine a better place to live, to breathe, to work, to eat.
“Nope,” she said, taking the first bite of her sandwich. She didn’t seem to mind the Swiss cheese—and he happened to love it. “I’ve lived by the ocean for years and never gone.”
“Well, I’m glad I get to be your first-time experience,” Ty said with a grin. Sage smiled back, and he swore it got brighter, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Warmth rushed through him, and it wasn’t from the humidity.
Something existed between them, and he had to know if it only came from him or not. At the same time, her text had been very clear—she wanted a friend. As he watched her, he couldn’t help wondering if he could be her friend for a day or two, and then quickly ease into being herboyfriend.
As she finished her sandwich, Ty tossed his napkin into his empty basket. “So, what do you do for fun when you’re not at the salon? When you’re not walking on the beach or hanging out with your Supper Club?”
Sage leaned back in her chair, a smile playing at her lips. Those eyes sparkled like fool’s gold, and oh, Ty could certainly be fooled into falling for her. “Well, I like to read. And I enjoy spending time with my sister. We watch movies, TV shows, crochet.”
“Cooking?”
Sage laughed lightly, and Ty couldn’t tell if it was the sound a friend would make when laughing, or if it held certain…flirtier qualities. “I leave the baking to Bessie,” she said. “Thelma and I trade nights for dinner, but it’s easy stuff.”
“Define ‘easy stuff.’” Ty didn’t do much cooking either, and he felt like this might be a tile they could stand on together.
“All right.” She settled back in her chair, the wind toying with the longer locks of her hair, and folded her arms. “I cooked a couple of nights ago, and it constituted me opening a couple of cans of beef stew that I’d put up a year or two ago—before moving here—and then making mashed potatoes. That all went in the oven until the stew was hot, andvoilà. Shepherd’s pie.”
He grinned, because something about Sage required it of him. “Wow.” He chuckled. “I’m not sure where I should go with that. The fact that you ‘put up’ cans of beef stew—I’m not even sure what that means—or that I should tease you about calling that easy.”
“It didn’t take too long,” she said with a mini-frown forming between her eyes. “Half-hour maybe, plus the baking.”
“Mm, the baking,” he said, feeling flirty inside himself. “Can’t do that for too much longer. You’ll sweat yourselves out of that apartment.”
She laughed, but she didn’t argue with him.
“I can’t remember the last time I peeled a potato,” Ty admitted as she quieted. “Or made mashed potatoes. That’s why it sounds like a lot of work to me.”
“Peeling potatoes is one of my most dreaded tasks,” she said. “But we were out of the freeze-dried ones, and.” She shrugged one shoulder and reached for the iced tea he’d bought for her. She took a drink, her eyes widening. “Mm, this is great.”
“Best sweet tea on the island,” he said proudly, as if he’d made it himself. “That’s why I come here.”
She glanced back toward the shack where their food had come from. “It’s kind of off the beaten path.”
“Just my kind of place.”
Their eyes met, and Ty wasn’t sure what chemical reactions had started, only that they had. He leaned toward her, but cut off his voice at the last minute, her text burning through his whole body.
I need a friend to go with me.
“Really?” she asked in the interim. “You seem like the Total Beaten Path type of guy.”
He grinned at her as a round of squawking seagulls tried to drown him out as he said, “I don’t know what that means.”
She smiled back as she gathered her hair, which had really started to tangle, into one hand. “It means you’re The Guy. The guy who knows all the best places on the island. The best biking paths, the best restaurants, the best whale watching tours.” Her eyebrows went up, clearly challenging him. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
He chuckled and shook his head, all she was going to get. “It’s getting windy and dark.” He stood and gathered their dishes and trash. She helped, picking up his drink for him when he ran out of hands to carry it with.
“Thanks,” he said.
