We Were Here: A New Adult Romance Prequel to Geoducks Are for Lovers (Modern Love Stories Book 1) (24 page)

“I never told her it was a date. I suggested we get coffee because we had you in common.”

“Coffee is girl code for a casual date.”

“It is?” He slowly blinked in realization. “Oh shit. Really? Explains a lot of things. Wow. Okay. I am a jerk.” He took the paper out of my hand. “Do you have a pen?”

I found one in my purse. “What are you writing down?”

“I need to apologize to Jenni.”

“Are you doing some sort of twelve step program?”

“Sort of.” He paused in his scribbling. “I didn’t go to rehab, if that’s what you’re implying. I’m not an addict. I just like smoking pot.”

“And you can quit any time.” My sarcasm returned.

“I have. Ask Gil. Or Maggie. They’ll tell you.”

I frowned, but Maggie’s story corroborated his words.

“My friends aren’t going to cover for me. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, I trust you. Maggie told me as much the other week.”

He bit down on the end of the pen, but his lips curled in a grin. “You talked to Maggie about me?”

I sighed. “Your name has come up in conversation. Mutual friends and everything.”

“Right, right.” After folding the paper, he replaced it in his wallet. “Where was I?”

“You have goals.”

“I do. One of those goals is to go out with you. I assume you got my last message from Jenni.”

Six words floated through my mind. “I did.”

“What’s it going to take for you to say yes? I’ve apologized. I’ve stalked you. Waited outside your door. Returned your lost glove. Given you space and time. I even asked. Nicely, I might add.” He tucked the pen back into my bag, then picked up my hand again.

I couldn’t keep avoiding him. No matter how much I wanted to protect my heart, I believed him.

“Okay.”

“What are you agreeing to?” Amusement and hope sparkled in his eyes.

“I’ll stop avoiding you.” My heart beat faster. I wanted to scream yes, but I also wanted to play with him a little. Honestly, I enjoyed feeling powerful.

As awareness coursed through me, I smiled. This wasn’t about me denying myself. Or worse, giving the guy all the power over me.

This was about saying yes to something I’d denied myself for months. From the moment he walked into the study room—late, cocky, and assuming the guy at the head of the table was me—I’d wanted him. Even when I thought he was an aimless screw up and the worst idea ever. My heart had wanted him, no matter what reasoning my mind presented. No evidence could change the reaction my body had to his presence.

“Will you go out with me? Let me be specific. Out with me on a date. The two of us. I’ll pick you up and drive us to a restaurant where I’ve made a reservation. I’ll pay the check with no arguing about going Dutch and splitting the bill because you’re a modern woman. A real, old-fashioned date.” His earnestness grew contagious.

“Will there be a goodnight kiss on this date you have planned?”

“Up to you. A peck on the cheek would be nice.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Nice? You’d be happy with nice?”

He nodded happily. “We can go as fast or as slow as you want.”

I mirrored his happy expression.

“Let’s get out of here.” His hand brushed my hair over my shoulder.

“We can’t. You still need an X-ray for your foot.”

He stood up without wincing. “Look, it seems to be fine.”

“Sit down! You’re probably in shock or something.” I pulled him down toward me.

He caught himself, bracing his hands on my chair’s armrests. “I’m fine,” he whispered a few inches from my face.

“Benton Grant . . .”

“Yes, Josephine Asotin?” I liked the way he said my name, but I wasn’t going to let him know that.

I scowled at him, raising my hand in the air. “Are you telling me we’ve been sitting here in a germ infested ER full of sick people for the past two hours for no reason?” Angry little arrows burst my happy bubble.

His signature cocky grin returned. “I wouldn’t say for no reason, but my foot is okay. I swear.”

I glowered at him.

“I needed to get you to listen to me. I did a risk assessment when I chased you down the stairs.”

“You faked hurting yourself and lied to me?” My voice rose to a shout.

A soft gasp told me the older woman had continued eavesdropping on us.

“You’re too much. This is your idea of winning me over?” I lowered my voice to a whisper and shoved him away from me.

He caught my hand. “I fibbed. A little white lie. Nothing major.”

I stormed out of the ER with him shadowing me. “Maybe I had plans tonight. Or homework or a test to study for!”

“Jo.” He stopped walking once we got to the parking lot.

“What?”

“The car is over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the hospital.

“I knew that.” I stomped off in the new direction.

“Remember five minutes ago when you liked me? You smiled at me and everything.” His voice sounded happy, despite my mood change.

Arriving at the car, I paused. He got under my skin like no other guy. One minute he lit up my world. The next, he riled me up like he knew where every single one of my buttons were located and what set me off.

“I’m so mad at you right now.”

“Only right now? You’ve been angry at me for months. In fact, have you ever not been mad at me? Pretty sure at this point, mad is the status quo. I’m not sure what you would do with yourself if you weren’t in a constant state of being annoyed at me.”

Despite all of my protests and doubts, he also made me laugh.

His brows lifted higher on his forehead and he pouted out his lip in some fake innocent expression I’m sure he thought would get him out of any trouble. “I’m sorry I faked a non-life threatening injury to get some alone time with you. However, I’m not sorry we talked. The motivation was honest, even if the injury was a lie. Forgive me?”

“You say sorry a lot.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Being less apologetic?”

“No, doing fewer things resulting in an apology. Starting with you.” He stepped closer. “Instead of more apologies, I’ll tell you what I don’t regret.”

I backed up until my thighs and bottom pressed against the car.

“I’m not sorry we spent the evening together.” He took another step.

“I’m not sorry I made you laugh.” Another step.

“I’m not sorry I held your hand.” He stopped walking when only a few inches separated our bodies. Reaching between us, he wrapped both of my hands in his.

“I’m not sorry for the way I feel about you.” He leaned closer.

I rested against the car and closed my eyes, my breathing shallow as I waited for whatever came next.

“And I’m never going to regret doing this.” His lips brushed against mine in the softest, most tortured kiss I’d ever experienced.

He groaned, and for a brief moment, he pressed himself against me. Then the kiss ended.

I slowly opened my eyelids, feeling as stunned as he looked.

“Wow,” he whispered.

I simply touched my lips in response. The feel of his kiss lingered and its memory tingled along the tender skin.

“Go out with me tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. I’ll ask you again in fifteen minutes.”

“Two Princes” ~ Spin Doctors

HE KEPT HIS
word. When the clock on his dashboard showed twelve o’clock, he asked me to dinner.

I said yes. With no regrets.

Ben arrived right on time at my door to escort me to dinner. He apologized to Jenni about misunderstanding the underlying code for coffee and told her he’d set her up with his friend Roger if she wanted a fun time.

He opened my doors all evening, including the car door. He’d morphed into the perfect gentleman. In fact, almost too perfect. Like Eddie Haskell on
Leave it to Beaver—
super smooth with all the right things to say.

He slipped the maître d’ a folded bill and we were seated at a table with a view of Lake Union in Seattle. Thick white cloths covered the tables and a harpist played in the corner. A real live woman plucking away on a gold harp while people chewed their food. Talk about over the top.

My menu didn’t have prices on it, but he assured me I could order anything, and it would be fine.

I had the crab. He had the steak. We shared and created our own version of surf and turf.

Everything was perfect.

No clowns.

No punches thrown.

It all seemed very grown up and sophisticated. Like something I’d experienced at senior prom, but without the shiny pink lamé prom dress with extra puffy sleeves and satin pumps dyed to match. No wilted wrist corsage either.

I still felt like a princess. Not because of the harpist, although she played beautifully. No, because the entire evening, Ben focused on me like I was the center of his world.

It was a pretty incredible world, too.

As of now, it included crab and harpists.

And my favorite part, slow, tender kisses I felt everywhere.

Being courted, as Ben called it, was as similar to modern dating as the horse and buggy were to race cars.

In other words, we took things slow.

Very slow.

The kiss at the car and another equally slow, restrained goodnight kiss following our first date were all the action I got from him. In one sense, it felt like months of flirting and sexual tension had been building up between us. In reality, we’d only gone on one date and spent the evening in the ER, which didn’t count.

It had been only a week since our date, but my patience had frayed to nothing. We talked all the time, even spending time on the phone when we weren’t together.

Talk. Talk. Talk. No action.

I knew he wasn’t above manipulating situations to his greatest advantage. I wouldn’t let him out-maneuver me. We didn’t fight, but we both loved to negotiate everything. It became our own kind of foreplay.

I spotted him outside the CAB chatting with Selah. Perfect timing.

After interrupting their conversation, I made my first move. “Selah, what do you think of the traditional dating structure? Girl sits by the phone waiting for boy to call to ask her out?”

Her green eyes blazed while her mouth twisted into a scowl. “I think it’s bullshit. What is this, the nineteen-fifties? It’s almost the twenty-first century. Women have jobs and birth control. We don’t have to be pregnant and stuck in the house all day taking care of screaming babies, watching soaps about lives we’ll never lead, and wondering where our dreams went while folding some man’s stained tightie-whities . . . unless we want to. Then, more power to you, sister.”