“I wish I had your confidence,” she whispered.
“Is being with me so painful?”
“No, and that’s the problem.” Straightening, she bumped him away with her butt. “Start getting the grill going. You’re distracting me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stepped back, retreating for the moment as they launched into food prep.
An hour and a half later they were seated on the couch with cups of coffee and full bellies.
“So what’s our next move?” he asked.
“A story.”
“Like what?”
“How did we get together? When? Why? They’re going to come at us like reporters sniffing around for a good story.”
He frowned. “You think so?”
“I know so. Especially my family. Lois and Melinda are going to be pissed. Not to mention Olive.” She sighed as she mentioned her best friend since junior high.
“You guys don’t keep secrets?”
“Not as big as this one. She won’t believe me.”
“We’ll bring her over to the dark side.”
She shook her head. “You think everything is a joke. I don’t want people to know what we’re doing. They’d be ashamed of us.” Her voice shook.
Reaching across the table, he cupped her chin. “Hey, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ll convince her. I don’t think it’ll be as hard as you think.” He tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “That fire is still there between us.”
“That’s lust.”
“Don’t cheapen what we have. It’s passion. Because, if nothing else, we love each other … don’t we?”
She glanced down, and his heart ached. “Don’t we?”
“Yes, Mason. That’s how I landed in this situation,” she snapped.
“I didn’t plan for my dad to come here.”
“No, but you sure took advantage of the situation, didn’t you?”
“What’s this really about?”
She shook her head. “Let’s just get our story straight.”
“I don’t want you upset.”
“Look, you cooked this plan up in your head and had time to get used to it. Give me the same courtesy.”
He flinched. He hated it when she was upset with him. “Okay. So ... When did we start dating?”
“After that disastrous double date. I swore off dating after that, and you got rid of Tiffany. The timeline will work and account for our supposed singledom. Now the why.”
“Maybe we realized it never worked out with anyone else because the person we were meant to be with might be the one in front of us,” he said softly.
She blinked and peered up at him. “That’s good.”