“Two for dinner, please,” Nathan told the hostess.
“It’s an hour wait,” she told him.
Nathan smiled disarmingly. “Are you sure you can’t get us a table sooner?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. The young hostess just stared at him. “Still an hour, dude.”
That’s when Holly came up. “How long of a wait?” Holly asked.
“Oh, hi Ms. Jones,” the hostess said with a grin. “He didn’t say he was with you. Since you called ahead, we’ll have your table ready in just a minute.”
The hostess gave Holly a wink. Nathan looked over to see Holly smiling smugly at him. He didn’t say anything with the press of people waiting around for a table. It was only a few minutes before the hostess had them seated at a small table near the back.
“You didn’t call ahead, did you?” he asked Holly.
She picked up her menu and shook her head. “Nope.”
“I’m a billionaire. I get the tables. She was going to make me wait.” Nathan shook his head in disbelief. “But you got us a table. How’d you do that?”
Holly grinned at him. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’m kind of a local celebrity.” She lowered the menu and her smiled grew smug. “I recently won this fancy educator’s award. The town’s pretty proud of me.”
“See, I knew there were perks to dating you,” Nathan said, picking up his menu and perusing it.
Holly’s heart caught in her chest. Dating? Were they dating? She kept her menu upright, but peeked over the top, trying to see if he was acting nervous. Maybe he didn’t mean to say that. Maybe he meant something else.
“Oh, the Colorado Burger sounds delicious,” he said, her mouth scrunching slightly to the side. “Or maybe the Whiskey Burger...”
Holly settled back, hiding her face with the menu. She liked the idea of them dating. She liked the idea of anything to do with Nathan. She was still sure she was going to wake up at any moment and find out this was all just a dream.
He was here.
She wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
They ordered and Holly found it hard to eat. She was hungry and the food was delicious, but she couldn’t seem to stop smiling long enough to put the food into her mouth. She was suddenly too excited to eat.
Nathan didn’t seem to have that problem. He ate with gusto, enjoying every bite. They chatted and laughed. He asked her about her day and she about his. It felt so normal. So right. This was how the world was supposed to be, she could feel it.
For once, it felt like the universe was in tune and things were going well.
“Would you like a tour of Old Town?” Holly asked as they finished their meal. She had most of her burger boxed up for later.
Nathan smiled at her. “I’d love one.”
Together they walked out into the night. Snow fell softly, decorating the trees and lampposts with a coat of white. It was still early despite the December dark, so all the stores were still open. Holly showed him the store that sold crystals to fix your chakras, the antique market, and the high end pet food store.
“And here’s my dad’s bookstore,” she said at the end of the tour. They stood outside the old brick building with snow still falling gently around them.
“He has some great sci-fi books in the front window,” Nathan said, peering through the glass.
“Come on in and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.” She pulled open the doors to the bookstore.
This was taking him to her special place. The bookstore was sacred. It was where she would hide from the world. Even though it was a store open to the public, it felt more like home than her apartment did.
She glanced back, nervously looking to see what Nathan thought of the place.
He stepped in, carefully brushing snow from his shoulders. He looked around and a slow smile filled his face.
“This is wonderful,” he said, taking a step in. He went to a shelf of books, pulling one out and carefully looking it over. “This is such a good b