He pauses, looks at me. “Um, so then…do you want to…come over? For coffee?”
My heart thuds, pounds, and I swallow hard. It’s just coffee. We’re just going to hang out and talk and have a cup of coffee. That’s all.
“Sure,” I say. “Sounds good.”
We’re in the Oak Junction neighborhood now, on North 3rd, the third street north of the county highway. Clayton’s planners, being the creative types that they obviously were, numbered the roads in the same way on the other side of the highway, only there, it’s South 1stand so on. Brilliant, I know. The houses here are old but well-kept, with deep front porches and steep concrete steps, tiny lawns in front, and shared backyard spaces fenced off in some places, but not in others.
North 3rdends at Washington, which takes you back to the county highway, and we make a left on Washington. We only go a quarter of a mile when Jamie comes to a stop outside a house painted a pale blue with a sea-foam green door, white shutters, and small, neat box shrubs on either side of the front door.
My hands tingle. My chest aches, and my heart is hammering. A little voice deep inside tells me I should rethink this, but that voice is too small and too quiet—there are other, louder voices that drown it out. Voices that remind me how handsome Jamie is, and how much fun I’ve had with him this evening, and how easy he is to be around, and how it’s been such a long, long time since I’ve been so attracted to anyone.
How long it’s been since…well…everything.
I let out a breath and shuffle a little closer to Jamie, so my chest brushes his and I’m staring up into his warm, intense, eager brown eyes; there’s no mistaking the shift in the atmosphere between us, or what he’s suggesting, and what I’m agreeing to when I say:
“Let’s go in.” I find his other hand with mine.
