Page 18 of Take the Bait

And it was the answer he hoped for.

6:30 p.m. I’ll be the one with the magnifying glass.

6

Tucker willed time to move faster.

The day ticked by meticulously slowly, though he found various tasks to keep himself busy. He’d completed nearly everything on his to-do list before helping the servers deliver food to each table. He was almost positive he was getting on their nerves—more than a couple of times, a few of the servers told him to take it easy, grab a drink, and let them do their job. He was a workaholic—they all knew it and had no problem telling him to take a step back so he didn’t burn out.

But he needed to keep moving. Needed to stay busy, until she showed up.

Because ever since he met Hanna, he realized maybe everyone else was right—that there was more to life than the restaurant.

As he was taking a shrimp cocktail to a couple on a date much less disastrous as Hanna’s, he saw her come in out of the corner of his eye.

She was wearing jeans and an oversized sweater, her brown hair pulled into a clip. As she caught his gaze, she smirked and held up a magnifying glass.

Tucker let out a guffaw, startling people at the tables around him. He bit his lip, giving hasty apologies for his outburst, then dropped off the shrimp cocktail before meeting Hanna at the hostess stand, where she was already charming the hostess.

“I’ve got it from here,” Tucker said to the girls at the hostess stand. They eyed him curiously as he put a hand on Hanna’s lower back and steered her toward a table close to the bar, a zap of electricity radiating through him at the contact.

“I hate to break it to you, but this date is not off to a good start,” Hanna said, a frown on her face as she sat down.

Tucker’s grin faltered, wondering what he’d done wrong. Slowly, he sat down across from her.

Then Hanna leaned in and conspiratorially whispered, “I was promised a trench coat.”

His shoulders dropped as he chuckled. “You were.”

“At least you got one thing right, though,” she said, her cheeks flushing.

He lifted a brow quizzically.

She bit her lip, eyes darting away, before whispering, “The devastatingly handsome part.”

His cheeks warmed—not just at the compliment, but in her utter shyness in its delivery. He hadn’t known Hanna long, but in that short time, he hadn’t come to think of her as timid.

It was cute, this new side of her. He liked it. He likedher.

“Hey, Tuck,” one of his best waitresses, a college student named Sheila, interrupted them. “Can I grab drinks for you?”

Tucker gestured to Hanna, encouraging her to go first.

She ordered a old fashioned, and he asked for an IPA they had on tap.

“And an order of shrimp cocktail, please,” he told Sheila, keeping his eyes on Hanna—on her fidgeting, on the cheeks that kept getting rosier.

Sheila left to put in their orders, and an awkward silence fell over the table. There were a million things he wanted to ask her, a million things he wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date. Usually, he and Shawn just fucked around with tourists. He hadn’t had time for anything more—hadn’tmadetime.

And now he felt himself spectacularly lacking when it came to romance and casual conversation.

Not to mention, he could be entertained just by staring at her, watching the way she took in the world, the way her face flushed at the mildest things, the way she got easily distracted. Hanna moved through the world like a newborn giraffe.

He reminded himself to never say that to her. Probably wouldn’t be received as a compliment.

“I believe you owe me a story about… What was it again? A dead squirrel?” She finally said, her lips tilting upward.

Tucker felt his mouth curve into a smile as Sheila placed their drinks and appetizer in front of them.

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