Page 60 of Love Bank
My phone dinged on the table in front of me. I could see it was a text message from Mom. Probably a quick hello with a cloaked question aimed to suss out what was going on with me. She’d been texting almost daily, a marked uptick in her normal pattern of communication. She smelled a rat, or more specifically, a man. She wouldn’t leave it alone until she knew every detail. She’d probably even enlist Lavender in due time to come question me down.
“Hey, Lucille?” Keva called me from the front lobby.
I put down the tray of samples I was in the middle of shipping off to the lab to be tested and walked out into the hall to see what she needed. At least I had a reason to ignore Mom’s text for a little longer.Dear God, let it not be Poppy, here to discuss why I’ve been examining the warden’s penis so closely and repeatedly.
I pushed open the door and saw Keva sitting behind her desk, a huge smile on her face. My gaze snagged on a large vase of red roses sitting on the counter, a white card nestled in the blooms.
“What’s all this?” I asked, bewildered. As far as I knew, Keva didn’t have a boyfriend.
“They’re for you!” she squealed and clapped her hands.
Her enthusiasm was contagious. A smile stretched across my face before I could school it into vague disinterest. My heart leapt in my chest, getting caught up in the flattery of receiving roses for the first time. I dared to hope they were from Bain.
I pulled the card out and bent to smell the flowers, grinning harder at the floral smell only roses could provide.
“See who it’s from!” Keva hopped up, unable to contain her excitement sitting down.
I straightened, my eyes suspiciously misty and accompanied by a lump in my throat. Maybe I was allergic to roses.
I pulled the card out of the tiny envelope, seeing Bain’s chicken scratch handwriting. Keva breathed over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse at the note too. Her gasp confirmed she could see it.
My sincerest apologies for the seagull situation. Let me take you out to dinner to officially say sorry. Yours, Bain
I rolled my eyes, secretly swooning, though I tried to act like I was unaffected by his sweet gesture. He’d already apologized for the bird drama a few weeks back, so this was nothing but a sly way of bringing attention to our “relationship.” Everyone at the flower shop knew he sent me flowers, Keva knew I received red roses from Bain, and now he wanted to take me out to a very public dinner?
Apparently his patience had run out. He was tired of me dragging my feet.
Bain wanted to go all in and I had a decision to make.
I scooped the roses up and brought them back to my office, their presence transforming my office into a lush space any woman would love to have. I retrieved my phone from the sample room and sat back down at my desk, staring at the roses. Before I could talk sense into myself, I pulled up my texts, ignored my mom’s, and went right to Bain’s thread.
Lucille:The roses and apology are unnecessary but delightful nonetheless. Dinner is a yes.
I hit send and dropped the phone down on the desk like it bit me. Fear gave way to excitement, the kind that gets under your skin and makes you glow with energy. I felt high as a kite, much like I did after the goat rubbed some sense into me not long ago. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my scratchy skirt, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
Bain and I would be officially dating.
And if he asked again tonight, I’d say yes to being exclusive.
To hell with the consequences.
* * *
Bain convinced me to drive my little convertible with the top down, despite the colder temperatures once the sun sank into the ocean. That thing he did with his teeth and then his tongue on the back of my neck was highly persuasive indeed.
We hit a bit of a traffic jam at the stop sign leading onto Main Street. I figured there was some sort of emergency happening as traffic wasn’t an issue in our little town.
“Quit frowning, Lucy. Everyone’s just looking to drag Main.” Bain’s big hand left my thigh, where it had been creeping higher and higher under my little black dress. Instead, he took my hand off the shifter where the knuckles had turned white from a worried death grip and forced my fingers to unfold and slip between his.
I glanced over, a little lost. “What’s ‘dragging Main’?”
Bain gawked at me. “You know, driving your car through town and seeing who’s around?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Why would I want to sit in traffic just to see who’s around? It’s probably just people I see every damn day as it is.”
Bain smirked. “It’s about being seen and having a good time. Why is the city boy having to explain this to the small-town girl?”
I scoffed. “Probably because I’m not a big enough dumbass to waste gas cruising down the same damn street I go down every damn day to see the same damn people.”
