Page 87 of Sounds Like Love

“Oh, this is a date?” The question slipped out before I could stop myself, and then I couldn’t take it back.

He took it in stride, grinning. “Do you want it to be?”

“Do you?” I asked hesitantly.

In reply, he reached over the small table and gently tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there, his thumb brushing against my cheek. He said softly, “I think I want that very much.”

Oh.

For a moment, all I felt was my own flustered feelings, and then I heard … a growl.

Deep, strangled.

My heart stuttered, and I pulled back from Van.Sasha?I quickly glanced at the tables around me, but he wasn’t here. He was just in my head.

Van looked concerned. “Sorry, did I overstep?”

“No,” I replied quickly, my heart thundering. “It just took me by surprise, is all.”

The waiter came back to ask for our orders. We both got what we had before our senior prom—crab cakes and risotto. Itwasthe best thing on the menu, after all.

Van pushed his fingers through his thick, dark hair, and straightened the farthest fork on his place setting because he’d accidentally knocked it crooked. “You know, I’ve played out this moment so many times in my head since asking you out, but it’s not going at all like I imagined.”

That made me curious. “You imagined dinner with me?”

His mouth twisted into a surprisingly sexy grin. That was something new. “More often than I want to admit.”

I waited for my heart to leap. For the butterflies in my stomach.

I listened for the voice in my head, but all was quiet.

Van’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. I’d always liked that about his smiles. He picked up his wineglass and swirled the chardonnay around, thoughtful. “Truth be told, mostly I imagined how angry you would be with me.”

That took me by surprise. I sat back. “Angry?”

“Come on, Jo,” he said, giving me a wary look, “I broke your heart, and I did it in such a shitty way … I just didn’t want to lose you until …”

“Until you decided that you wanted something else.”

He shifted, uncomfortable at my bluntness. “Yeah. And distance gave me some perspective on a lot of things. I realized that I treated people like I did video games. Whenever I wanted to try something else, I’d just save and come back when I felt like it, and I expected the other person to do the same.”

I sat there quietly, feeling a little déjà vu. The words were different, but wasn’t this sort of what Gigi had accused me of doing, too? He’d left me on the beach, and in a way, I’d left Gigi as a direct result. His body language—the tense shoulders, the bobbing leg, the way he kept righting his utensils—seemed so obvious now. He wasn’t nervous to be on adatewith me. I didn’t think this even was a date, despite what he said. This was him, sitting down with me, finally unspooling the knot he left me in almost a decade ago.

“So, I guess recently, I’ve just been …imagining, over and over, what to say to you to make it better.”

Make it better … ? It had happened so long ago. How did he—

Oh.

“The song,” I guessed, my dread palpable.

“It’s really good,” he assured me quickly. “I mean, you know I’m more into Oasis and Nirvana. But it’s good. Like,reallygood. I wouldn’t have known it was your writing if my mom hadn’t kept up with you for all these years. She told me you had written a song for some pop star—”

“Willa Grey.”

“Right. Willa Grey. So, I listened to the song and I … realized that you deserve an apology.”

Oh god. This wasn’t how I imagined tonight going at all. I drained my wine.

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