“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Lucas asks as he gets settled in. He looks tired from his day at work. He looks like he could use a shoulder rub. And before I can stop the thoughts, I wonder how strong his shoulders would feel beneath my fingertips.
“No,” I say, the word coming out a little too loudly. “Thank you. But I have to get home.”
He nods. I think I catch a flicker of relief in his eyes. “Okay. Well, thank you for watching Penelope.”
“We had fun today,” I say.
I poke my head into the living room to say goodbye to Penelope, then head out to my car. When I turn the key in the ignition, though, the engine sputters and dies. I try again. Still no luck.
I drop my face into my hands and groan.
When I go back up to the house and knock, Lucas opens the front door and raises his eyebrows.
“My car won’t start,” I say. “I’m going to call a tow truck. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be out here for a while.”
“Let me take a look at it first,” he says. “Hold on. I’ll be out in a minute.”
A few minutes later, Lucas has the hood of my car propped open and is trying to diagnose what’s wrong. At one point, he thinks he figures it out. But the car still won’t start.
“Shit,” he says, wiping the grease off his hands onto a rag. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“It was nice of you to try,” I say. “I’ll call for a tow.”
He nods and puts the hood down. “But while you’re waiting, you’ll have dinner with us, okay?”
Right on cue, my stomach growls.
“Guess that’s a yes,” I say with a careful smile.
Tonight, I soon find out, is macaroni and cheese night—plus a big, hearty salad. The meal is delicious, and it’s nice to eat with Penelope and Lucas again. The tow truck shows up midway through our meal, at which point I excuse myself to go take care of that. And I wait until after we’re done eating to pull up a rideshare app on my phone and request a pickup. The app says my ride should be there in ten minutes.
“Can I watch TV?” Penelope asks.
“One show,” says Lucas.
Penelope runs off, and Lucas and I clear the table. Then, even though he protests, I rinse off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.
“It’s nothing,” I say. I close the dishwasher and dry my hands on a towel. Then I dig my phone out of my pocket to check on the status of my ride. It should be close by now. When I pull up the app, though, there’s a notification that the driver has gotten delayed.
“Looks like my ride’s still a ways away,” I say.
Lucas nods. Neither of us says anything for a moment.
Then he asks, “Do you want a glass of wine?”
I know I should probably say no. I know I shouldn’t let myself get even close to buzzed around the guy I have unacceptable feelings for.
But wine does sound really good. And I feel restless without something to do with my hands. I guess as long as I don’t drink very much…
“Sure,” I say. “Just a little bit, though.”
I watch as he gets down a couple wine glasses from a cabinet and uncorks a bottle of red. He fills both glasses less than a third of the way up and holds one out to me.
Our hands don’t touch when the exchange happens, but I still feel a little vibration run up my spine. I bring the glass to my lips and take a sip. It’s really good wine—super smooth and just the right amount of sweet.
“What is this?” I ask.