Because It's You (Carolina Rebels 2)

“Hey, you’re the one who said I was too good for you. Not me. I didn’t even hint at it. This is all on you. I can’t help that I’m so damn amazing and irresistible.”

“You’re plenty resistible,” she interrupts. “Don’t force me to knock you down a peg or two.”

“I can’t let you do that because you’d enjoy it too much.”

Elizabeth laughs again. “I would.” I hear her take a deep breath. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, be ready around six-thirty.”

“Okay. Thanks for talking to me. You’d probably rather go to sleep after a game.”

“I don’t mind at all. Get some rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

We hang up and I finally start getting ready for bed. Maybe our date tomorrow will help loosen her up with the looming holiday.

I knock on Elizabeth’s door and it swings open within seconds. Her body is stretched across mine as she throws her arms around my neck. Her hold is strong. My grin can probably be seen from the moon.

She missed me.

“Hey,” I whisper, turning my face inward to kiss her temple.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

“Ready?”

“Yes.” She locks up, takes my hand, and we walk to where my truck is still running. It’s not cold today; I think the high is in the low fifties, but it’ll drop to the twenties tonight. It feels pretty good to me, actually. “Where are we going?” Elizabeth asks once I’ve backed out of her driveway.

“Well, we’re going to Bagels and Butts for dinner.”

“Oh, good. I’ve been wanting that lately.”

“Me too.” That’s the first time I’ve had Carolina BBQ because I’ll be honest and admit I’ve avoided it, but it was damn good.

“What about after that?”

“It’s a surprise.”

A quick glance shows her rolling her eyes at me. I thought she might try to push for more details, but she doesn’t. We have light conversation at the restaurant, which is good, but once we pull up at the dance studio, Elizabeth is confused.

“We’re going to square dance.”

She starts laughing.

“What?”

“I swear, I think there’s a wannabe Southerner hidden inside of you. First, you love my accent. Then you talked about a Southern belle. You love BBQ, and now we’re going to learn how to square dance?” A few more giggles escapes her.

“You mean you don’t know how?”

She shakes her head. “Well, kind of. I vaguely remember learning some steps in P.E. in elementary school or middle school; I can’t remember. Basically, I don’t know how.”

“Well, we get thirty minutes of an introduction to the steps and then a couple of hours of dancing. Let’s go.”

Let me just say that I’ve never seen Elizabeth keep a smile on her face for as long as she does while we’re here. She smiles the entire time. Elizabeth hates this time of year, usually stays isolated in her house, and she’s smiling.

“Right hand star,” the announcer calls out.

I grab the right wrist of the person on my left. Even I have to admit that this is more fun than I was expecting, and I was expecting it to be fun. Maybe Elizabeth is right and there’s a covert Southerner waiting to break out inside of me, which is really odd to think about.