Page 90 of The Lies I've Told
My eyelids parted, and I found him staring at me with concern.
“Everything all right?”
Giving him a warm smile, I nodded. “Yes. Perfect.”
“Good,” he said, leaning into the doorframe, his dark hair still wet from our long shower together “Because I want to take you out to dinner.”
“Out?”
“Yeah,” he said. “What’s odd about that?”
I just smiled, continuing my task of reorganizing my clothes. He watched my effort, and I couldn’t help but laugh as his eyes seemed to follow every undergarment I touched.
“Going out to dinner in Ocracoke isn’t quite the same as it is in New York.”
“Oh? Do I need to ask permission from your father? Send you a written invitation first? Or should I arrive at your house in a horse and buggy?”
I pressed my lips together and gave him an exasperated look. “You’re in a small town in the South, not 1864.”
“Well then, explain the difference please. I’m afraid my Orphan Annie upbringing hasn’t adequately prepared me on how to properly date a Southern Belle.” For the last few words, he did his best impression of a Southern accent. It was horrible.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Have I mentioned that I worked outside all day? I’m famished, love.”
“You know, that’s the first time you’ve called me that when it hasn’t directly related to sex.” I grinned.
“Is not,” he said.
My head bobbed up and down. “Is too.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, you are almost naked. Are you trying to get out of having a lovely meal with me?”
“What if we pack a picnic and head to the beach?”
His face sobered slightly.
“At night?” he asked.
I looked to the window and the sun that would soon be setting behind it. “Um, yes. That would be the intention. There’s this great local spot I can take you. It’s a little bit of a hike, but if we leave now, we can get there before it gets dark.”
“And how will we get back?”
I shrugged. “There should be enough moonlight.”
He quickly shook his head. “No.” I could see the wheels in his head working. Thinking. Calculating. “You know, we’ve done things kind of backward.”
“Backward?”
“Backward,” he confirmed, stepping forward. I could see determination locked in his gaze. “We slept together. Then, we took a trip together, and I met your family. All that, and we haven’t had a decent meal together.”
“We had that lovely meal at that barbecue joint in North Carolina,” I replied. “And several meals in New York.”
He shook his head. “We barely touched our food at that dive in North Carolina. We were too amped up on the sexual tension building between us.”
“Mmm,” was all I could say.
“And I’ll admit, the food we ate in New York was excellent, but I was trying to be showy and took you to some of the most well-known places I could think of, which is why I couldn’t hear anything you said the entire time.”
