Page 24 of Tumbling the Cornerback

Lucas let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since Sunny’s interruption and joined in my laughter. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time,” he remarked, fluttering his lashes at me with a coy smirk.

“If that’s all it takes to impress you, then I think this evening is going better than I assumed.”

Lucas studied my face carefully, his smirk falling into something serious, considering. “Are you trying to impress me?”

Awkwardness flooded my veins, heating me to a nice, cheery pink under Lucas’s shrewd gaze. “Maybe?”

He snorted. Shaking his head, he turned away to head down the aisle. “Come on. Let’s buy each other a book.”

I strode after him, catching up easily. “Seriously? This is a book date now?”

He hummed in agreement. “I pick out something for you, you pick out something for me. Then we swap. My sister Renata did this with a few of the people she’s dated and said it’s a fun way to find out what they think about you.”

That was worrisome. “I don’t know if I want to know what you think of me,” I muttered. He flinched, ducking his face away.

“Maybe I’m worried, too.”

I gestured to the books around us. “One way to find out, I guess?”

He nodded slowly. “What’re you going to do if the book I pick for you sucks?”

“Smile and say I love it.”

He rolled his eyes. “No. That’s shitty. Then I’ll think you love it, and that’s how you end up getting 400 tiny thimbles from various state and national parks.”

“Er...”

“Long story short, I told Titi the little thimble she brought back from Yellowstone was cute, and now I have hundreds of the damn things in a storage unit outside of town with the rest of my shit.”

Slipping around him to block his path, I made a cross over my heart. “I promise I will never inundate you with souvenirs from national and state parks, even if you told me my spoon collection was cute and I had very refined taste in dust catchers.”

His lips tilted mischievously, but he nodded. “I’ll hold you to that. Now come on. Let’s browse first. Then we’ll split up.”

As we wandered through the aisles of the bookstore, our fingers brushing occasionally as we reached for the same book or shared a whispered comment about a rare find, I couldn’t shake the warmth blooming in my chest. Being with Lucas felt effortless, comfortable, and undeniably exciting all at once. I wanted to browse the store forever, wanted to take him back to my place, and—well, yeah, do the fun stuff, but also just watch something silly on streaming, talk about the books we got, learn more about him. Tell him more about me... About how maybe he had the right idea looking farther into the future, past what we were doing now.

About how maybe he had given me some ideas about what I could work towards one day, when it was time to pack it in.

We split after twenty more minutes, Lucas heading for a corner of the store we hadn’t been to yet. I, after a moment of hesitation, veered towards the social sciences shelves. It took a few minutes for me to find something I knew my sister had in her shop because I’d helped her stock the shelves a few weeks back, so I guessed Sonny might have it too. Sonny rang me up with a suspicious glare, watching me as I waited for Lucas.

“Bup bup bup,” Lucas scolded as he sailed out of the aisles, wagging a finger at me. “No peeking.”

Obediently, I turned my back as he handed Sonny his selection, then listened in amused surprise as he charmed the hell out of the prickly shop owner. “You’re welcome back any time,” Sonny informed him. “He’s not.”

My laugh was stifled until we stepped out onto the pavement. “Geezly crow,” Lucas snickered, “he’s personally offended by your existence.”

“It’s impossible not to like me,” I complained with mock offense. “Something must be wrong with him.”

“I dunno. I didn’t like you much when we met...” He trailed off, not meeting my eyes as he instead focused back the way we’d come. “Walk me to my car? I parked behind the bar.”

We walked for a few moments, the street quiet as we were off the main drag, before I mustered the courage to say, “You said that in the past tense.”

“Hmm? Yeah, because I parked in the past. If I was still parking my car, we wouldn’t be here.”

I stopped, and, after a few more steps, so did he. “Your ears are red.”

“Shut up,” he muttered, darting a glance up at me. “It’s warm out. I get red when I’m warm.”

“And here I was thinking it was because you were a little embarrassed. Maybe a tiny bit shy.”

---