Page 31 of Finding Their Place

“Eyes up here, beautiful.”

Cheeks heating again, I gave his face my attention. “You’re pretty damn fine yourself.”

We both laughed lightly, my insides squirming like a three-year-old who’d been told to sit still. Both of our smiles slowly faded, and I leaned onto the table, crossing my arms. Wyatt glanced down at my boobs, and I totally took advantage of my posture to plump up my cleavage, but I ignored my desire to tease further.

“How are you doing, Wyatt?”

A heavy sigh sank him back into his chair, and he lifted his focus off my chest. “Floundering.”

“I can imagine. Will you tell me what happened? Sometimes it’s easier opening up to a near stranger to unload what’s weighing on your mind.” Again, I thought of my roommate and how he would better understand than me.

“You don’t feel like a stranger,” Wyatt stated quietly, those intense orbs of his studying my face, “and believe it or not, I wanted to talk to you. I had already decided I would word vomit the shit of my life today over the phone if we ended up putting our dinner date off for a later time.”

My throat tightened, my eyes stinging at the glaze creeping over his. He felt as invested, as connected as I did. How the fuck was that possible after two conversations?

Then again, I rarely conversed. Just went for the dick.

Pleasant flutters rose in my belly over the prospect we might actually have found something worth the effort of exploring outside of sex.

“What can I get you to drink?” The waitress interrupted, and Wyatt glanced at the glass of chardonnay I’d been nursing since I showed up ten minutes early in my anticipation of our date starting.

“Just water for now,” he told her, offering her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

She ambled off.

“Let’s figure out what we want to eat, then settle in,” I suggested.

Wyatt rubbed his palms down his thighs and nodded, eyeing the menu. “Sounds good.”

Less than five minutes later, we had our order put through to the kitchen, and we once more caught each other’s gazes across the table.

Quiet music filtered through hidden speakers, light jazz and dimmed lighting creating a sexy mood, but heaviness seemed to hang over Wyatt’s head. I tended toward selfishness when going out with hookups, but something inside me cared about his emotions. Having shit for parents amped up my empathy, and I found myself leaning forward as though closing the distance between us might help him deal with what he’d learned.

“Give it to me,” I said.

One of his eyebrows arched, and I rolled my eyes.

“Tell me what happened,” I amended my words with a smile.

“This morning,” he began and blew out a steady exhale before starting again. “I was excited about our date, flying high, and got on my cell to check social media while drinking my first cup of coffee. A red heart notification let me know someone had poked me on Missing Link, so I brought up their profile just in case…”

He motioned between us, and I nodded, refusing to allow jealousy to grumble in my mind. Honestly, I probably would have done the same if a guy had poked me.

“The second I laid eyes on her profile picture, I went to the floor. Literally. It was like looking in a mirror, but she has longer hair.”

“Oh shit,” I whispered, my eyes popping wide as I realized where he was going with his story. What were the chances?

Wyatt went on to tell me how he put through a video call to the woman who’d poked him and ended up learning his real name.

Rowan Angel, twin to sister River.

His eyes went all misty again while talking about her, sharing every bit of information he could recall from their hours-long conversation, including not knowing where their birth mother or father were.

That sadness dissolved when he moved on to the confrontation with his adoptive parents where he told me he clung to his anger, that sense of betrayal, exactly as I did whenever the hurt over my parents became too much.

Our gazes stayed locked, the words and emotional connection between us becoming a living, tangible entity.

The waitress brought our food, cutting Wyatt off mid-sentence about how his dad—Lionel—had coddled his wife Tina rather than going to Wyatt. While steaming plates were delivered in front of us, I tried to imagine how insignificant he must have felt in that moment.

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