Page 28 of Burn With Me

Thank goodness the cheese here doesn’t bother me.

I blush when I realize I’m half in Luke’s lap.

“Sorry,” I whisper and lean back to my side of the truck.

He stops me by putting his hand on the back of my neck, and we’re face-to-face.

“I’m not,” he says.

He leans in and kisses me on the cheek before letting me go.

I just stare at him as he places his order, wondering if I can mentally tell him to kiss me again.

Shaking my head, I reach for my purse to grab my card.

“Put it away. I asked you out, so I’m paying for it,” he says as we pull around to the window.

“Okay. As long as you’re sure.”

Honestly, I don’t care who pays, but I hate when people just assume someone else is paying.

We get our food and eat on the way to mini golf, continuing our questions.

Some of my anxieties start to fade away.

While this isn’t our first date, technically, this is the first one I officially agreed to, so in my mind, this is my first real date in over five years. I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to take this step. However, Luke is easy to talk to. There’s no pressure here, and we have a lot in common.

We continue our questions way past twenty as we pull into the parking lot for mini golf.

Bringing one of the chips to his mouth, he asks, “If you could pick anywhere else to start your farm, where would it have been?”

“This is where the grant was, so New Mexico won by default, but if the grant wasn’t state specific and I could be anywhere, it would have been around central Florida,” I say as I gather our garbage and open the door to jump down.

“Really? That’s vastly different from here,” he says as he rounds his truck and grabs my hand like it’s the most normal thing to do.

He looks at me and smiles as he squeezes my hand.

“Yeah, I actually hate winters. It’s a pain to plan for the greenhouse to have a heating source so the plants can grow all year, but I’ve figured it out. Plus, I love Universal and Disney,” I say with a shrug.

“Huh, never would have guessed. Not that it’s a bad thing, but not what I pictured you would say,” he responds as we walk up to the counter where the young college kid is on his phone.

“Just the two of you? Are you doing nine or eighteen holes?” he asks without looking up.

Luke looks at me. “Wanna do the full eighteen?”

“Yeah. I’m down. More holes I can kick your ass on,” I say with a laugh.

His eyes sparkle with laughter, but he doesn’t say anything as he pays the kid. We grab our clubs and pick the balls we’ll use.

“I’ll take it easy on you, sweetness. I don’t want to hurt your feelings while we’re on a date,” he teases.

“Whatever you say, hot shot,” I reply.

What he doesn’t know is that I played a lot of mini golf after my breakup with Leo because it forced me out of the house when I didn’t really want to leave, but he’s about to find out. Although he’s lucky because I’ve never played this course before.

“Ladies first.” He bows and sweeps his arm forward dramatically.

“Such a gentleman,” I say as I look at the first hole and try to figure out how I want to take the shot.

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