Did he ever. Play it cool, he warned himself, wondering if she could hear his heart thundering. To let her know he wasn’t excited at all, in any way, he glanced at his watch and then shrugged. “I have a few minutes. Coffee would be fine.”
There. Calm. Cool. Unimpressed. You have to keep it up, he reminded himself. Don’t slip for even a second.
“Good, because I need some caffeine.” She linked her arm with his and smiled up at him. “Shall we?”
She smelled like warm vanilla cake, which made his mouth water. He wondered how he could disengage her arm without letting her know how affected he was by her closeness. As they went inside the coffee shop, he held back, and gestured toward the counter. “After you.” There. That seemed natural. I hope.
She stepped up to the counter and put in a thoroughly complicated drink order that had more instructions than his grandma’s hummingbird cake recipe. When she was done, he asked for coffee with cream.
She sent him a measuring look and he shrugged. “I’m not into that swanky stuff.”
“You never were.” Her eyes crinkled with her smile. “Do you remember when you said you hated coffee and would never drink it?”
“Tenth grade.” The barista called his name and he collected his cup. “I just said it to make you mad. You thought coffee was so fancy.”
“It was fancy after I got through with it. Remember how I’d use Grandma Dove’s old china cups and saucers? And Aunt Jo bought me those boxes of sugar cubes, too.”
“You were a pretentious child back in the day.”
“You liked it,” she said smugly.
She was wrong about that. He’d liked her, not the overly dramatic coffee time.
The barista called Ella’s name. She collected her drink, and they went back to her car, chatting the whole way. He knew he should have just taken his coffee, made an excuse, and left, but that would mean leaving her alone and he wasn’t quite up to that yet. I’ll just stay long enough to drink half of this. Soon enough, they were sitting in her car.
She twisted around and lifted a cake box from the back seat. She opened it and handed him a cupcake. “Chocolate with cream cheese frosting.”
It wasn’t his favorite combination, but he took it. He watched as she took one and then returned the box to the back seat. “So how did Grandma get you to drive her around? I’d enlist in the Foreign Legion before I signed up for that.”
“We have a deal, the two of us. I do this for her, and in return she gives me the one thing she’s never given me before—the benefit of the doubt.” Ella settled back into her seat, her cupcake in one hand as she took a sip from her macchiato, her gray-green eyes roving over him. “You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you.”
“People do that.”
“Yes, but you’re a lot more…” She hesitated, as if searching for the right word. Finally, she laughed and said, “You’re just more, that’s all there is to it.”
“And here I was thinking you hadn’t changed one bit.” He took a bite of the cupcake, the flavor and texture surprising him. Darn, but she knew how to make the common uncommon. “There are chocolate chips in here.”
She twinkled at him. “Lots and lots of tiny dark chocolate chips. I call these my Chocolate Secret cupcakes.”
“Grandma is going to love these.” He took another bite and then followed it with a sip of coffee. “Mmm. These two together are something—coffee and chocolate.”
“I know, right?” She beamed at him over her almost-gone cupcake, her eyes sparkling.
She had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen, her lashes thick and dark. He was instantly hit with a memory of the first time she’d ever smiled directly at him. He’d thought she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. “Do you remember biology class? You were a horrible lab partner.”
“I was lucky you were in advanced placement, too.” Her smile exploded. “I would never have passed without your help.”
And he would have never made it through high school without having her smile to look forward to every day. He vividly remembered how happy he’d been to see her in the hallway at her locker each morning. “No one could understand why the most popular girl in school would even talk to a nerd like me.”
Her gaze flickered over him, lingering here and there. “Nerds can be hot.”
His body heated with the touch of her gaze and, fighting the urge to lean over and kiss her, he instead took a sip of his almost-too-hot coffee. The heat jolted him back to sanity. What was I thinking, getting into a car with her like this?
Regaining control over himself, he managed a shrug. “That was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago,” she protested with an uncertain laugh. “You make it sound as if we’re ancient.”
“Not ancient, but certainly more grown-up.”
“I suppose so, although my sisters would disagree with that. They think I don’t know what I really want and keep trying to talk me into moving back to Dove Pond permanently.”
“You’d never do that. You’ve called this place ‘suffocating’ and ‘dismal.’ I’ve heard you.”
A faint flush warmed her cheeks. “It’s not that bad. It’s just that whenever I’m in Dove Pond, people don’t see me as Ella, but as ‘one of the Dove sisters,’ and they start expecting me to be that—a Dove sister, and not me.”
“And you hate that, people expecting things from you.” Like staying with someone after all the new has worn off. Like making a commitment to be there, through the good and the bad. Like love, forever and ever.
Her gaze dropped to her cup, and she absently toyed with the straw. “I just want to be myself. Happiness requires fluidity and freedom. Otherwise, you’re just…” She shrugged. “Trapped.”
Oh, Ella, love isn’t being trapped. It’s letting your emotions run free, without check. He knew that was as true as the sky was blue, and yet he wasn’t sure how to say it without revealing more of himself than he wanted. More than she wanted, too.
“That probably sounds silly, although…” She tilted her head to one side and gave him a curious look, the sunshine slanting in from the car window touching the freckles on her nose. “I was surprised you’d moved back. You swore you’d never live here.”
“I used to think this place was too small, but then I lived in Atlanta.”
“And?”
“It was too big.” He made a face. “And noisy. I wish I— Ah. Here comes Grandma.” Both irked and relieved at her appearance, he got out of the car and went to meet her.
Grandma was trying to slide a small bag into her purse without messing up her freshly done nails. On seeing him, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Gray.” She didn’t sound the least happy to see him.
He sent her a knowing smirk over his cup of coffee. “Taking a spa day, are you?”
Ella climbed out of the car, sipping her macchiato as she watched him and his grandma.
Grandma wiggled her fingers. “I just got my nails done. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it at all,” Gray said. “But if you show up at home with a manicure, won’t Mom get suspicious?”