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“It’s going to... It’s going to help me with that.”
“Magically? Without you having to actually change yourself?”
He snarled, literally snarled like a feral animal and turned his focus back to the road.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said.
“Am I?”
“Yes. You’re the one that asked for this, and now you’re behaving like I’m punishing you.”
“Well...” He suddenly relaxed his hold on the steering wheel. “It’s fine. You’re right. It’s a crutch. All that stuff. I don’t like the idea of trying to walk without it. But I’ll live.”
“Fair enough. I guess if you start dating Fia Sullivan then you just...”
She didn’t even know what she’d been about to say really. That if he was so mad with passion for her that he couldn’t hold himself back, they could proceed with their desires? Like she knew anything about that. She wasn’t even sure she believed that was real.
She thought maybe people just wanted to satisfy their appetites and pretend that they couldn’t resist a person because it sounded more romantic than the alternative.
Which was that they were like animals, completely driven by biological urges that they didn’t have any control over. People just liked to make them seem more significant.
They were silent for most of the drive after that.
It was weird to be out of words between them. Usually, they could chat about anything, but for some reason the introduction of intercourse to the conversation had been like a bomb dropped in the middle of everything.
She felt itchy.
Finally, they arrived in Mapleton, and she was able to find words again because she could talk about some of the new businesses that had popped up; new restaurants she hadn’t seen before. And then they were at Amuse, a tiny little restaurant housed in a cottage at the end of the main street.
There were cute little twinkle lights strung across the walkway in the front, and it was lit up like a fairyland.
She wasn’t usually given to flights of fancy, but it was the kind of place that lent itself to that.
“I love it,” she whispered.
“I hoped that you would.”
Why? Why had he hoped that she would love it? This was just an experiment. They were on an official fake date, and she was supposed to be evaluating him through the lens of another woman. It wasn’t supposed to be about her, or what she liked or wanted or anything like that.
“How come you hoped I would like it?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“Well, I didn’t want to take you out to a place you didn’t like.”
“Yes, but none of this is for me.”
“Charity, why can’t it be for you? Yeah, I’m trying to figure some stuff out in my life, but you’re not a prop. You’re a person. You have to eat the dinner. You’re spending the evening with me. You’re not insignificant.”
It was such a strange declaration, and it sat weird in the pit of her stomach.
“Well... Okay. Thank you.”
They walked up the front steps and inside.
“Reservation for two, under McCloud,” he said to the girl behind the podium.
“Of course. We put you over in the garden room.”
They walked down the long hall and to a room at the back of the cottage. It had floral wallpaper and just one table in it, set up by the window. She hadn’t known it would be...private like this. It was not quite like anything she’d ever seen before.
