Page 31 of Sheltered
In the time we’d been sitting together, the sun had started to set. It was dusk, and the previews started.
“Are you comfortable enough?” Blaze asked.
I was sitting beside him, blankets beneath our bodies and pillows behind our backs. Twisting my neck, I looked over and said, “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“If you get colder as it gets later, just let me know. I brought an extra sweatshirt.”
My belly flipped. I wanted nothing more than to be able to pull his sweatshirt on in hopes that when he took me home tonight, we might both forget about it, and I’d be able to sleep with the scent of him surrounding me all night.
As though sensing the thoughts going through my head, Blaze chuckled, hopped out of the truck, and opened the back door. A moment later, he held the sweatshirt out to me and sat down beside me before focusing his attention on the previews. It felt like a huge moment for us, and it was that which made me remember something I needed to ask him.
“Blaze?”
“Yeah?”
I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out before I advised, “First, it’s completely okay if you can’t or don’t want to, but I have something I need to ask you.”
He didn’t seem the least bit fazed. “Sure. What’s up?”
I bit my lip nervously, wondering if I was going to ruin what was happening between us. “My dad’s birthday is in two weeks, and my mom, brothers, and I are taking him out for dinner that Sunday. I was wondering if you would like to come along and meet my family.”
Blaze didn’t respond with words. His eyes bored into mine, his expression attempting to communicate what his voice wasn’t. The problem was that I couldn’t begin to decipher what it was that he wanted to say.
Assuming the worst, I panicked and insisted, “You don’t have to do this at all. I just… When my mom asked me about the day working for me, all I could think was that I’d love to have you there. I realize we’ve just started getting to know one another, but?—”
“Harlow,” Blaze said, cutting me off.
“Yeah?”
A slow smile crept across his face. “I’d love to go with you.”
My whole body perked up. “Really?”
He nodded.
“I thought you were going to tell me I was crazy for even suggesting something like that,” I declared.
“Have you done it before?”
“What?
“Taken a guy and introduced him to your family,” he clarified.
I shook my head. “No. You would be my first.”
A mischievous smile spread across his face. “There’s not a chance I’m going to miss it now.”
Biting my lip, I felt the flush hit my cheeks.
Apparently, Blaze liked that, because he wrapped his arm around my back, curled me in toward his chest, and used his other hand to capture my jaw and angle my head. Then he smiled before he kissed me.
It wasn’t the same as our first kiss in the rain, but it was our first kiss in the bed of a truck at the drive-in theater, which made it no less spectacular.
Blaze and I kissed throughout the remainder of the previews, and when the movie finally came on, he readjusted the pillows behind his body and held me close to him throughout.
The entire thing—the picnic in the back of the truck, the conversation, and the way he kissed and held me—was the sweetest, most romantic thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
And the best part of it all was that when Blaze took me home later that night and kissed me senselessly at my door, we both forgot I was wearing his sweatshirt.