Page 89 of The Scientist
My cheeks flushed at his words. “Is it the boots?” I asked playfully.
“No.” He was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “It’s you.”
Now my whole body felt flushed.
Once we got seated at a small Italian restaurant downtown, I ordered wine, trying to fight the nerves as I looked over the menu. My eyes bugged out when I saw the prices.
“Holy crap!” I said.
His brows rose. “What?”
“These prices are insane,” I told him. “There’s no way I’m ordering anything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
“I think I’ll just stick with the wine and some bread,” I said, grabbing a piece from the basket.
“Hadley…”
“If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
He sighed. “I’m just going to order something for you if you don’t choose. We’ve had dinner together a thousand times. I know what you like.”
“Fine,” I said, choosing the cheapest option I could find. He ordered for himself and added two more dishes to the order that I knew were for me: pan-seared scallops and a black truffle pasta.Yum.
I looked over at him, still in disbelief that we were actually doing this. I was nervous but for the most part, I was absolutely thrilled. His expression was unreadable as he looked back at me.
“Can I ask you something?” His tone had me a little worried.
“What is it?”
“Did the fact that I helped your mom get into the trial have anything to do with you agreeing to come tonight?” He looked so dejected at the thought. “I-I never wanted you to feel obligated to me. I didn’t do it for this. I never even wanted you to know.”
“I know you didn’t.” The desire to comfort him was overwhelming. I reached out and placed my hand on his, making the butterflies spark to life even with this simple touch. “But I already told you how badly I wanted this to happen. I’m so grateful for what you did for my mom, but me being here has nothing to do with that.”
I wished I had told him before everything happened with my mom. I didn’t want him to have any doubts about how I felt.
“I can’t pinpoint exactly when my feelings started to change, but I’ve always felt drawn to you. Since I first heard you speak at faculty night, I’ve wanted to know you. And the more I did, the more I knew it wasn’t just friendship I was feeling.” I smiled at him, threading my fingers through his. “But then you were only nice to me when we were alone, so I figured you were embarrassed by me, or you weren’t really interested.”
“That wasn’t it,” he said, looking down at our entwined hands. He stared at them for a moment before he finally pulled his eyes up to meet mine. “There hasn’t been a single day since we first met that I haven’t thought about you. At times, it seemed like that was all I could think about. I’d spend almost every daycounting down the minutes until I could see you again. But I didn’t think there was a chance in hell you felt the same way, so I tried to keep my distance. I felt like it was written all over me how badly I wanted you. I was always trying to hide it, but people noticed anyway.”
“Stuart,” I guessed.
He smiled. “He was always pushing me to tell you how I felt. But then I wasn’t sure if you liked him.”
I shook my head. “Not in that way.”
“He said the same thing. But I was still jealous of how easy your friendship seemed to be.”
“We care about each other, but it’s never been like that,” I said. “You’re lucky to have such a good friend.”
“So he’s always telling me,” he said with a wry smile, and I laughed.
The dinner was amazing, especially the dishes he had ordered for me.Damn him. I tried arguing for him to let me at least pay for my half of the dinner, but he rolled his eyes and ignored my plea.
The drive to our mystery activity took about thirty minutes, and I grew even more curious as we approached the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. He held my hand as we walked along the dock of theSafe Harbor Marinato a small fishing boat that apparently was waiting for us.
“We’re going on a boat?” I asked.