Page 34 of Laugh

Wrapping my arms around her, I quickly move us with the crowd to head outside the front doors in an attempt to escape the smoke and smell of burned grease.

I don’t release her as we stand outside, waiting for the staff to let us know what we should do. Haddie’s body is trembling slightly as she stays tucked into my body. I feel fucking terrible that she’s scared by what just happened and can’t help the sinking thoughts that this date has gone all to hell.

Running my hand up and down her back, I press my lips to the top of her head and inhale the scent of her shampoo. “I’m sorry about all of this. Are you okay?” I ask, squeezing her tighter to me before I frown when I hear a distorted snort muffled against my chest.

With the way she’s leaning into me, I can’t see her face to gauge how she’s doing. I frown again when I hear another snort and feel her shoulders start shaking harder.Fuck. Is she sobbing into my chest?

“Happy, baby… Please don’t cry. Their systems did exactly what they were supposed to do, and I’m sure we were never in any danger.” I do my best to soothe her, but a burst of laughter from her finally has me pulling back far enough to scrutinize her face.

Haddie’s cheeks are bright red, her eyes are watering, and those plump, kissable lips are working hard to hold back a smile. Cocking my head to the side, I ask curiously, “Are you laughing because you find this funny, or because you’re having an inappropriate reaction to trauma?”

My question was serious, but when she finally stops holding it in, her raucous laughter causes multiple heads to turn toward us. Some of them glaring at her like she’s insane. I narrow my eyes at them until they look away.

“You’re really lighting my world on fire, Beau.” Her words come out between giggles and attempts to catch her breath. “Seriously, our first date ever and I offend you by putting my flowers in a blender, tear my dress to the point you can practically see my ass, and then…” She sucks in a breath to stifle some of her laughter but fails. “Andthen, our restaurant almost catches onfire!”

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she looks up at me with eyes glittering under the outside lights of the building. “It’ll be a story for the kids, amiright?”

I gulp down the immediate knot that forms in my throat at the mention of kids. Not because I hate the idea, but that it sounds reasonable and like exactly what I want. That’s a lot to unpack while in the middle of our first disastrous date. Or,datedate as Haddie likes to call it.

Her giggling dies down rapidly, and she clears her throat awkwardly. “Just teasing, Cap. It’ll be a great bar story, though. Like when you and your buddies sit around and decide to one-up each other on who had the worst imaginable date. You can be like, ‘Oh, you think an undercooked steak was bad? Let me tell you about the time ourrestaurantalmost caught on fire’. It’ll be one for the books!”

Nervous rambling. It hasn’t taken me long to know that she does this when she’s trying to cover up her embarrassment from something she’s said, and I hate that it’s a habit of hers. Not that I don’t find the way her mind wanders incredibly cute, but I don’t want her to filter what she says. I like the surprise of her mind’s inner workings.

Humming, I pull her back toward me and wrap an arm around her waist while we wait. “Maybe. We could also try to top this one to see what shenanigans could happen on ourdatedate number two. Fire is a tough one to beat, but maybe we could go hiking and get lost and chased by bears.”

Her eyes light up at that idea and I relax, happy to have moved her past what she probably feels was a slip of the tongue. “Or boating and have a near drowning experience. Good excuse for some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation though! Or take a flight and have engine failure. Honestly, our options are endless.”

Smiling down at her, we toss ideas back and forth, trying to come up with the best ‘worst’ date ideas until we’re allowed back inside to gather our things.

“Want to grab a burger since we didn’t get to eat dinner?” I ask her as I start the engine of my car. The hibachi place gave us vouchers to use at a later time and shut the place down for the evening to clean up the mess.

Haddie is buckled in, but her body is turned toward me. Her smile hasn’t left her face since she started laughing and I realize that even though things haven’t gone to plan, it’s still turning out to be a fun evening. It will be a good story forourhistory book.

“Wecould. I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink, so could we have one afterwards? Only if you’re up for it. I don’t know how long you had planned on enduring thedatedate, so if you wanted to drop me ba–”

I cut her off before her speech gets too lengthy. “Happy. I’m not ready to call it a night yet, if you’re still good.”

This time, she looks at me with a hint of shyness behind her smile. I love the confident front she puts up with people, but this peek behind her mask has me even more certain that I like the woman I’m trying to get to know.

“Definitely.” Her smile makes me reach out to hold her hand for the rest of our drive to a fast-food place.

Once we order and scarf down burgers and fries, we sit back and let our food settle for a moment, both leaning back and looking at each other while we enjoy the silence.I haven’t really let go of her hand except when we needed to unwrap our dinner. At one point, she flipped hers upside down so she could lace her fingers with mine, and I feel like a teenager holding hands with a pretty girl for the first time. I could literally sit here all night like this, but I know we can’t.

“You want to go grab that drink? We could head over to O’Reilly’s if you’d like.”

Chewing on her lip, she seems hesitant, but then explains why. “We can go there. You should know that everyone is going to be there, though. Marcus told me he was going to meet Addie, along with Bamber and her bimbos.”

I bite back a smile at her use of Bamber. It’s really quite fitting. “Will it be a problem if they’re there?”

“Umm…” She chews on her lip as she considers my question. “Not so much foryou, but I’m sure you’ll get questions. Bamber will be pissed because I’m stealing her boyfriend, so… Actually, yeah, let’s go. It’ll be super fun if you don’t care that she’ll blow a gasket.”

Her tone changed halfway through, and I see a spark of playfulness flashing through her face. I couldn’t care less if her sister gets pissed I’m there with Haddie. I never once indicated that she and I were anything more than two people who sat next to each other at a table one time. There was a moment that I had considered asking Kandii out, one of Amber’s friends, but I never got around to it because Haddie very quickly became my sole focus.

“Super fun, huh?” I wink at her as I start the car back up.

Mumbling, she blushes when she adds, “Super fun for me.” Then, quite a bit louder, asks, “Do you want to come with me to our family dinner tomorrow night? Because seriously, it’s going to be a damn war. Wait, no, nevermind. You don’t want to experience all of them at once. You’ll never call me again.”

Chuckling, I pull the car out of the lot and head toward O’Reilly’s. “If you want me to come to dinner to meet the parents and protect you from your sister, I’d be honored.”

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