He didn’t stifle her. He was just a steady presence close to her, playing with a strand of her hair once or twice or whispering something funny in her ear. He was always there, his cologne downright intoxicating every time she caught a whiff of it.
Those light touches and subtle caresses were making her stir-crazy, but she loved them all nonetheless.
God, she couldn’t wait for their date.
Date.
They had an actual date.
Which was hitting her right then, in the car with Stacie, as she drove Maddy home. The guys had escorted them to Stacie’s vehicle before they’d headed away.
Nate had left her with a soft, lingering kiss on her cheek and a “See you tomorrow” full of promise, before he followed Cooper and Liam, a secret smile on his lips.
Her cheeks were still hot just thinking about it.
“So, I have a date tomorrow.”
Now, it was a good thing that Stacie wasn’t a drinker either or she might have swerved the car into the ongoing traffic on the opposite side of the road.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that? Because I think my ears are still ringing from the music.”
“I have a date with Nate tomorrow.”
Stacie was silent for a moment, which prompted Maddy to peek at her from the side of her eye.
“And how do you feel about that?” she asked finally.
Maddy sighed, as if unleashing a ton of pent-up emotions. There were a lot of things she could say to that. That she was so excited about it they’d have to invent a better word for it. That she was still scared all this would vanish in the blink of an eye.
Instead she said the only thing that mattered.
“I can’t wait.”
And everything she hadn’t uttered must have been there in the tone of her voice because Stacie didn’t ask anything else on that. She just beamed, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Okay, then! Give me all the details. What kind of date are we talking about?”
thirty-seven
The next day, Maddy wondered if this was the day she finally expired from overthinking.
She’d woken up with the jittery feeling she used to get on Christmas mornings. Except now the reason was completely different.
However, she’d given herself a stern talking-to.
She was being ridiculous.
So what if she wanted to scream her excitement into her pillow.
She wouldn’t. Because she was a mature, level-headed woman.
Yeah, the stern talking-to hadn’t worked one bit. Though, shehadredirected her nervous energy into finding a nice movie for the evening. And tracking down some fantastic tiramisu, which was the closest pastry she could think of that was remotely coffee-flavored. It would be nothing like nonna’s espresso-filled chocolate, but it would do. Plus, it was Italian.
She balanced the bag holding the tiramisu and her own purse in one hand while she used the other to ring on Nate’s doorbell a few hours later.
She scanned her outfit quickly as she waited for him to answer the door. She was quite pleased with the casual dress she’d picked out for tonight.
The beginning of spring had graced them with a few unusually balmy days, warm enough to chance wearing her favorite floral dress—mocha brown with small, soft pink blooms everywhere—along with her leather jacket and mid-ankle boots of the same shade. She’d also opted to leave her hair down, loose in soft waves around her face. She’d kept her glasses though and had donned on her preferred light make-up that never failed to make her feel pretty but also like herself.
