Page 33 of I Can't Help It

I yank my phone out to take a much-needed picture. “It’s—”

“Beautiful.”

My pulse jumps at his statement, and this feels like one of those parts in a romance book or movie where the guy is actually looking at the girl instead of the view in front of him. Super swoony stuff.

But Luke isn’t looking at me.

Nope.

He’s looking at the creek.

First, I was jealous of the printer at work, and now I’m jealous of this dumb creek.

I begrudgingly take a picture of the BEAUTIFUL creek before shoving my phone back into my pocket.

Luke raises an eyebrow at me. “Everything okay?”

I guess I could tell him that everything isn’t okay because I’ve been crushing on him for so long, and it’s horrible not knowing if he’s interested in me.

My confession of feelings could happen right now.

I can’t do it though.

The determination and confidence I had earlier are currently subatomic.

So, I offer a slight shrug. “I’m hungry. How about you?”

MIXED MESSAGES

Luke

I’m a mess.

Each second that goes by has me more and more worried about Ava telling me how she really feels. And even though I know the truth already, hearing it from her own mouth will be catastrophic. I won’t be able to recover.

She was going to tell me when we were outside. I’m sure of it.

Thank goodness her friend called when she did, because I was ready to do something crazy like lean down and claim Ava’s lips as mine. She was too close to ignore and I never wanted her to let go of my hand.

When we were standing by the creek was her second chance to tell me, but she didn’t, which is why we’re sitting at a table in the lodge’s dining area instead.

Whispering Creek provides complimentary breakfast, but they also have a café open for lunch or dinner orders. Since it’s in between the technical lunch and dinner hours, we just chose ready-made options. I got a harvest salad topped with dried cranberries, walnuts, shaved turkey, roasted pumpkin seeds, and an apple cider vinaigrette dressing. Ava got a bowl of butternut squash chili.

The combo of squash and chili has me dubious, but she seems to be enjoying it.

“You’ve hardly touched your salad. Is it terrible?”

No, I’ve just been too busy watching her eat. And if she licks her lips one more time…

I clear my throat as I pick up my fork again. “It’s good.”

“Hmm,” she hums, taking a sip of her water, “do you ever get tired of salads though?”

Of course, she’s noticed that I usually eat salads when I have lunch at the office. Just like I know that chicken nuggets are her all-time favorite food.

“There’s too many different ways to have a salad.” I proceed to stab a forkful of my food. “So, no, I don’t think I could get tired of them.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and then Ava speaks again. “This has been nice…spending time with you outside of the office.”

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