Riggs might have told me there was no pressure to do this, but I had a feeling if I’d turned him down, he wouldn’t have handled the news very well. It seemed to me that Riggs was already very invested in this. Almost as much as a woman who spent her weekend staring at photos of a man who looked at her like she was his world.
“So, where do we start?” I asked.
Riggs gave me one last squeeze before he sat back and declared, “Your number. I want your phone number.”
The overwhelming tension was gone, and we were back to our easygoing interaction. I happily gave Riggs my phone number before he gave me his.
We stayed there a little while longer enjoying our coffee and simply being with one another again. I was feeling so good that when he suggested we should get up and leave, it left me a bit bummed.
The next thing I knew we were back in his truck. He started it but stared straight ahead and didn’t drive away.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Riggs brought his eyes to mine. “Yeah. It’s just… well, if you are free on Saturday, we have the fall festival at my family’s farm every weekend now up until Thanksgiving. I won’t have a whole lot of spare time since it’s a big event, but if you’re not busy, I’d love it if you could stop by.”
Technically, I didn’t have any plans for Saturday. Sunday I was volunteering at the soup kitchen, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t carve out time on Saturday to stop by his family’s farm.
“I think I can find a way to make an appearance,” I told him.
His face lit up at my words. Then before I even realized it was happening, Riggs was reaching across the center console and driving his hand into my hair, tugging me toward him. A moment later, his mouth was on mine.
I immediately melted into him.
It was divine.
Long after he first touched his lips to mine and well after his tongue had swept into my mouth, Riggs pulled back and rested his forehead against mine.
“That would have sucked,” he rasped.
“What?”
“If you weren’t willing to give us this chance. It would have sucked for me to miss out on being able to kiss you like that again,” he remarked.
I let out a little laugh. “Lucky for you, I’m such a giving woman.”
His hand gently squeezed the back of my neck. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Lucky for me.”
Riggs gave himself a few more seconds like that before he dropped his hand from my neck and directed his attention back out the windshield. Then he drove me back to school to pick up my car.
Suffice it to say, he sent me off with another kiss, proving he could be a giving man, too.
Adele
What a week it had been.
I was still in disbelief that I’d gotten here.
And so was Kacey.
After I got home from my impromptu coffee date with Riggs on Monday, I found that Kacey had responded to the text I sent her when I’d first gotten into his truck a couple hours earlier.
Kacey: This is how it starts. A new guy comes along and you start ditching your best friend.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have worried that she was upset. Luckily, I knew Kacey, and I knew she wasn’t feeling anything but pure joy at the fact I was out with Riggs. Even if I hadn’t known that, her follow-up text would have proved that.
Kacey: Kidding!! I’m literally dancing over here because I’m so excited. Call me the minute you get home. Unless, of course, you go home with Riggs or he follows you to your place. Then you should wait to call me until after he’s had his way with you.
That response had me laughing.
Not only did I not want to keep her waiting, I also really wanted to share my news with her. So, I didn’t hesitate to tap my fingers on the screen and call her.
I wasn’t even sure the phone rang a full time before I heard, “Well, it’s obvious he hasn’t had his way with you yet.”
I giggled and replied, “You’re crazy.”
“Oh, listen to you,” she started, the hope in her voice unmistakable. “You’re giggling. That tells me that even though you haven’t seen that man naked yet, there’s a definite possibility of it happening soon.”
I closed my eyes. As crazy at Kacey was, she never failed to give me the best ideas sometimes. Right now was one of those times. My body physically reacted to the thought of seeing Riggs naked.
When I didn’t immediately respond to her, Kacey demanded, “Tell me what happened. I’ve been going crazy here waiting for you to call.”
I didn’t delay.
I told her everything.
She didn’t interrupt once as I shared it all from the moment he arrived at the school until he gave me a kiss in the parking lot before he sent me off.
When I finished, Kacey practically squealed with delight. “This is the best thing ever, Adele,” she began. “He wants to find out if you’re that woman and you told him to take his shot. This is just perfect.”
“Relax, Kace, we’re just trying this out,” I noted. “It might not work.”
“He’s going to call you tonight,” she stated.
“What?”
“Mark my words. That man is going to call you tonight. In fact, I’m willing to bet that man calls you every single night up until he sees you again on Saturday,” she insisted.
“What makes you say that?” I wondered.
She didn’t even take the time to think about her response before she said, “Because I listened to everything you just told me he said. He doesn’t want to risk the possibility of you ending up with someone else. He knows what anyone who looks at those photos of the two of you knows. There’s something there that’s really special. He’d be a fool to let you pass him by.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t like what she was saying, but I wanted to give her a hard time.
“You know, I could have told him I wasn’t interested,” I pointed out.
“And you would have been nothing but a big fat liar if you did,” she declared.
She was right. I would have been a big, fat liar if I’d told him that.
I gave Kacey a few more minutes to celebrate the fact that Riggs and I were going to try and see if things could work for us before I insisted, “We need to talk about the work I did this weekend. And I need to know if you found out anything on your school district’s situation. Are they better or worse off than mine?”
“And she’s back to work,” Kacey teased.
“Just because I had a date with a guy doesn’t mean that kids aren’t starving,” I reasoned. “I still have to do my part to help them.”
“Well when you put it like that, I’ve got no choice, do I?” she retorted.
“Nope.”
She let out a sigh and shared, “Just as we suspected, my district is worse off than yours.”
I was afraid she’d say that. “How bad is it?” I asked.
“Do you really want to know?” she cautioned.
Those words were enough for me to know I wasn’t going to like what she said. Even still, I needed to know the full scope of the problem, so I confirmed, “Yes, I want to know.”
Kacey hesitated and I grew anxious before she told me, “The district’s school meal debt is just over one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.”