“Sorry,” she muttered. “This little bugger isn’t cooperating.”
“You’ve probably got reservations. We can try again later,” he said, holding as still as possible while she dug into his healing wound.
“I’m afraid it will swell over after I’ve messed with it so much. I’m so close,” she said through gritted teeth, her focus so intense and adorable and neither a massive earthquake causing the roof to come down over them nor a volcanic eruption filling the room with ash would stop her from finishing the job.
He laughed and she glared up at him for moving again. “Sorry,” he whispered, completely unapologetically this time. “Seriously. Your date looks very confused.” He looked up at Haley and winked as she smiled curiously at him. “And hungry,” he added, tipping a reassuring nod toward Haley.
Haley laughed softly and shook her head. “I’m good. I know better than to interrupt Trace when she’s this… focused.”
“Where are you going for dinner?” he asked.
“The Italian place,” Haley answered, relaxing against the door.
“Still the best date spot in town?” A fact he had quickly learned. For his first real date in town, he’d planned to take the girl to the fast-food joint so they could have a picnic and make out down by the river, but Jeremy had snuck him a hundred and said where to go, and to order dessert, too. On the way out the door, Ellen had smoothed his hair and made him tuck in his shirt.
One of these days, he’d have to get out and see how much Foothills had grown up in the last decade. On the drive into town with Jeremy a few days ago, he’d seen more than a few new shops, new paint jobs, but he suspected a lot had stayed the same.
Haley scowled playfully and shook her head. “Second only to Halseth’s.”
His ears pricked up as he settled on what she’d said. At least Trace must still be close with Finn and his family, for her date to have pegged the pub as a better date spot than the Italian place. “Then why aren’t you going there tonight?”
“Don’t want Finn listening in,” Haley said, studying him carefully, her tone light with easy banter. What the hell was going on? He’d been under the impression that Finn and Trace were friends.
“Got you, you little son of a bitch,” Trace growled cheerfully as she held the last stitch in her tweezers, popping up to stand and showing off the twisted bugger.
“Me or the suture?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow as she rested one hand on his thigh and admired her handiwork.
She snorted and shook her head.
Before he could get a good look, it slipped from the tweezers and she laughed, the little bit lost forever in the carpet, likely with a few dozen pins ready to stab him in the foot the moment he hopped down.
“Thank you,” he said, an easy grin lifting the sides of his mouth as she set down the tweezers next to him, still standing dangerously close.
Hand still on his thigh for leverage, she checked the wound again and traced her thumb over the sides of it. “Are we supposed to bandage this or anything?”
“Nope,” he answered, that damn hope fluttering under his chest as she touched him. In front of her date. Who enjoyed Trace’s ex’s family pub but also didn’t want Trace’s ex overhearing.
He lowered to the floor, slowly and fearfully as he anticipated a miniscule prick, the idea of it somehow more terrifying than a blow to the head, relieved when nothing stabbed into his foot.
Trace didn’t move, now way too close for comfort, steadying the flat of her hand over his abdomen. “You good?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Yeah. Not dizzy,” he answered, nodding confidently but knowing damn well his cheeks were ghost white.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, studying him with that ferocity and he knew she wasn’t going to release him until she was sure.
“Long-lost cousin?” Haley asked from the doorway, lifting a curious, grinning look at them.
“What?” Trace asked without looking at her date, scowling up at Cole instead, now both hands gripping him tight around his middle. If he wasn’t dizzy before, he was spinning now. “No. Gross.”
He laughed at the unabashed honesty, that smidge of hopefulness perking up again. “Gross? That bad, huh? That you don’t even want to pretend to be related to me?”
She snorted a laugh. “You’re cute,” she muttered. “Maybe we should say you’re my imaginary friend.”
Dizziness washing away, his head was flooded thanks to her touching him, looking at him, pressed against him. “You were fifteen when we met. I think you’d outgrown imaginary friends by then.”
“And you were sixteen and I would totally have claimed you as an imaginary boyfriend,” she said, lifting an eyebrow and grinning wickedly at him.
“You had a boyfriend,” he said, gravel coating his voice as her words lingered where they shouldn’t. “You didn’t need an imaginary one.”
