Page 56 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man
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“Would you like another bottle of wine?” The attentive waiter looked back and forth between Brayden and me.
He shrugged. “I’m game, if you are.”
“Sure. Why not?”
Brayden reached across the table and laced his fingers with mine. “If I’m being honest, I don’t even care about the wine. I’m just not ready for the night to end.”
I smiled. “Me neither.”
Before the waiter interrupted, Brayden had been talking about the new project he was working on—a superhero leg for a boy who’d lost his to bone cancer. I’d witnessed firsthand the excitement his creations brought a child, but the way Brayden’s eyes lit up when he talked about the details, I was pretty sure he got just as much out of making the prosthetics as the kids did receiving them.
“You know, you’ve inspired me,” I said.
He wiggled his brows. “To take off your clothes?”
I chuckled. “To do more for cancer survivors. I can’t make artificial limbs or anything as cool as you, but I can offer free services to patients going through treatment to spoil them a little. Like facials and massages, and we’ve even started offering banana bags—IV vitamin infusion. But really, I could offer anything they were in the mood for, to give them a day to relax and be pampered.”
“I think that’s a great idea.”
“Thank you. I sort of stole it from a handsome guy I know.”
The waiter returned with our wine. He showed us the label before opening the bottle, then poured a sample for us to taste before filling our glasses.
I sipped and watched Brayden over the rim of my glass, getting lost in thought for a moment.
Not surprisingly, he noticed. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“How do you know I’m thinking about something?”
He pointed to my face. “Your eyes glaze over and sort of go out of focus when you’re trying to figure something out.”
I shook my head. “Is there anything you don’t notice?”
“Not about you…” He sipped his wine and set down his glass. “Talk to me. What’s bugging you?”
“Nothing really…”
He gave me a look that said I was full of shit.
I sighed. “I was thinking I should probably not have another glass of wine after this.”
“You’re feeling it?”
“A little.”
“I would never try to take advantage of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh no. It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s me.”
Brayden’s brows shot up. “You’re thinking about taking advantage of me?”
“It’s all I can think about these days.”
“And that’s a problem, because…”
“I haven’t…you know since my husband.”