“Yeah, a daughter. She’s eleven going on eighty.” When she dips her gaze to my left hand, I murmur, “Divorced.”
“How long?”
“Almost a year.” And what a year it’s been, with the move to Chicago and the wrench from my old New York life, like a limb from a socket. I’d tried to shove it, dislocated as it was, back into place but the clean break was necessary.
My revelation has shifted the energy between us. “Kind of ruined the moment there.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You’re talking about daredevil feats and what gets your adrenaline spiked. I call your hand with my kid. Real smooth.”
Something sparks in her eyes. “Yeah, real smooth.”
Am I trying to scare her off? Maybe. Or perhaps I’m trying to deflect from the lust that must be so obvious it’s a wonder the diner hasn’t incinerated by now.
“But kids are their own adrenaline rush, right?” she asks. “You’d do anything to protect her. That’s kind of … hot.” She waves a casual hand. “If you like that sort of thing.”
Her half-crooked, almost secretive smile says she might indeed like that sort of thing.
Three
Abby
“You don’t need to walk me home.”
He stops and tilts his head. “Is that your way of saying you’d rather I didn’t know where you lived?”
We left the diner together a couple of minutes ago to the soundtrack of Tessa snapping pics of us with her phone. So they can track down your killer if necessary, she added. Not the comfort she thinks it is.
Pie Guy is definitely giving off vibes of normal, but how can you tell these days? I’m sure plenty of women have gone on seemingly normal dates and regretted the reveal of a home address.
Not that this is a date.
Yet I’m thinking of the ways good dates end. The steamy ways.
“You said you were just a couple of blocks away …” he prompts.
“Right, so too short for an Uber but now we’re in this problem gray area where I don’t want you to know my exact address because, stalker. But you’re probably a complete gentleman walking me home, which means you might get offended that I’d even think that.”
He leans against the corner of the diner, a casual yet soothing pose. “You think my ego can’t handle a woman being careful?”
“I don’t know. Can it?”
“It can.”
He has a straight-talking, laconic way about him that’s incredibly sexy.
“Still doesn’t solve our problem,” he adds.
“Unless …” I touch a finger to my lips. “You act as if you never met me and we haven’t been talking for two hours.”
“More like three.”
Really? That’s … I don’t even know what that is. “For all you know, I could be heading home right now, a total stranger, pie in my belly, keys at the ready, poised to jump into action if anyone tries anything.” Little does he know I could probably kick the ass of any guy who crosses me. Some people don’t think it very feminine and plenty of dates have upended on the reveal of my trainee firefighter status. “If you hadn’t come in here tonight, you would never have been presented with this dilemma.”
“Yet I did. And I was.” His hazel eyes flash, and with the illumination of a nearby streetlamp, I spot a ring of green around them. Framed by those inky lashes, they’re possibly the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. “I enjoyed the pie,” he adds.
It sounds like a non sequitur, except that pie is likely a catch-all for the whole experience. He’s enjoyed the conversation, the pie, the sparks igniting between us.
“I enjoyed it, too.”
We walk a few steps, comfortingly in sync.
“This is my street,” I say as we arrive at the corner. It’s not, but we’re close enough. “I live about halfway down the block.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. I hope it’s because he’s having a hard time stopping himself from touching me.
He says, “Do you think you might want to—”
“Yes.” God, I’m embarrassing. “I mean—it depends on what you were going to ask.”
“What question were you answering?”
“I’d like to get pie with you again sometime.”
He smiles and Christ on a fire truck, I’m gone. For the last hour he’s come close—a half grin here, a slight curve there—but this is the real deal. Mega wattage, governments falling, worlds destroyed and rising from the ashes through Star Trek terraforming.
“How about I give you my number?”
I hand off my phone. He enters his digits with his even better digits. When he hands it back, I check to make sure it isn’t something fake with a triple five like the movies.
“Diner Dude?” That’s what he entered in the name field, and it makes me laugh. He has a 212 number, so my hunch about his New York origins is correct. “We’re not on real names?”
“Not sure I want to jinx it. Put your number in there.”
I take his phone, enter my number, and hand it back.
“No self-selection of a cute nickname?”
“Curious to see how imaginative you can get.”
His eyes haze over. “Where you’re concerned, very.” He taps on the screen.
“What did you call me?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“I would, actually.”
He licks his lips. “Cherry Pie. Does that work?”
I don’t want to say I love it because I might love it too much.
Instead I respond with, “So now, we have numbers.”
“And the potential for more pie.”
The night is over, or it should be, yet I’m not ready to leave. There’s an energy in the air, a dance of molecules that prohibits me from stepping away. Neither does he look like he wants to go. If anything, he appears to have moved closer.
My pulse goes wild. I put my phone in my purse, then immediately regret it because now I have nothing to occupy my hands.
I have ideas, though. I want to squeeze those biceps, the ones straining the bounds of his button-down shirt. Suspecting he isn’t a regular shirt guy, I wonder how he acquired all those muscles and how soon I can take advantage.
“You okay?” he asks, and now I know he’s closer.
“Not sure. I feel like something else should happen here yet—”
“It’s too soon?”
My heart kicks up, thrumming at his response. He feels it, too. “Yes. I really should go because if I don’t …”
I stay still, waiting impatiently, my breath on hold, my pulse drumming to an erratic beat. He reaches for me, and at the last moment, turns his hand so his knuckles brush my arm. My body goes haywire, electric sparks shiver-shocking across my skin.
“Do that again,” I whisper. My voice sounds raw. Desperate.
He does, only this time he punctuates it with a curl of his hand around my hip and a step into my space. His chest brushes mine, tantalizing, sending my nipples into painful points. I’m tall, but he has four inches on me.