He signed and moved toward her. Leaning down, he stamped an impatient kiss on her lips. Pulled back. Did it again, lingering this time. Well, that answered that question.
Friends didn’t kiss like that.
“Okay?” he asked impatiently.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Excellent. Now let’s get going. I want to stop and get a first-aid kit on the way.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I can’t believe you made me eat so much,” Sophie groaned as she curled up on Gray’s couch, pulling her bare feet beneath her.
“I can’t believe you made me start a fire,” he replied.
Sophie snorted. “By ‘start a fire,’ I suppose you mean flipping a switch and letting the gas flames roar to life?”
“Still, it’s May. You’re wearing shorts and sandals. A fire feels incongruous.”
“It’s cozy,” she corrected as she accepted the glass of dessert wine he handed her, loving the casual way he let his fingers brush hers as though they’d done this a thousand times before. As though they hadn’t spent the past months either ignoring each other or clawing at each other’s throats or tearing out each other’s hearts.
He settled on the couch next to her, not quite touching, but close enough for her to feel his body warmth. Sophie longed to lean against him, but as much progress as they’d made today, she wasn’t sure he was ready for companionable contact.
She’d never seen Gray like this. He was easy, comfortable. Perhaps not quite chatty, but he’d lost that wary, nervous look he’d always worn like a suit of armor.
Was this a date?
As with their first disastrous dinner, the food had been fabulous. He claimed that he would just “whip something up,” which, in the Wyatt home, apparently equated to veal carpaccio, beet and arugula salad, and some sort of delicate fish in a delicious vanilla-saffron sauce.
Sophie had been the one to keep the conversation light and easy, as was her expertise, but he’d more than held his own, even opening up about his hopes of improving his relationships with Jack and Jenna. They both stared quietly into the fire for a moment, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, Sophie felt content.
There was nobody she had to impress or comfort or appease. She could just be.
She realized it had always been that way with Gray. At first, she hadn’t bothered trying to impress him because the effort would be futile. He’d seemed determined to dislike her.
But then she’d quit trying to impress him for a different reason. Somewhere between typing up his reports and bowling with his family, Sophie realized that Gray didn’t want her to put on a show. In fact, the times when he seemed to withdraw the most were when she was at her most cute. The more she sparkled and charmed, the more sullen he’d gotten.
Gray had always seemed to want to see the real her. And somewhere along the line, she’d begun to let him.
She rotated her body slightly, and, resting her cheek against the back of the couch, she stared up at him. He glanced at her briefly, but turned away just as quickly.
“What now?” he asked. But his tone was without rancor or annoyance, and she smiled. When had his abrupt irritability started to make her grin like a fool?
“Tell me about Jessica,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. It was a risk, and she mentally crossed her fingers that he wouldn’t shut down.
He didn’t respond for several moments, and she panicked, realizing she’d pushed him too far and too fast. But Gray was full of surprises tonight, and although he wouldn’t look at her, he finally spoke.
“You mean Ashley and Jenna haven’t spilled the whole sad story?”
“No. They alluded to it being a Titanic-type situation, but both insisted that it wasn’t their story to tell.”
“It’s not really something I talk about.”
“Okay,” she said, not wanting to scare him off. “I didn’t mean to pry, it’s just so strange to think of you…”
He gave a sad smile. “Of course you mean to pry. And what, is it hard for you to imagine me on one knee pouring my heart out?”
A mental image flashed through Sophie’s mind, and she felt sucker punched. She could imagine it. Suddenly she longed for it. But it wasn’t Jessica that she pictured. It was herself. Smiling down at Gray. He wouldn’t be smiling, of course, but his eyes would be…loving.