Gage thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest.
Her eyes were dazzling, lit up by the streetlamp above them.
“Can I take you home?” Gage whispered into the night.
Rylee’s expression remained the same as she nodded enthusiastically.
“You can,” she said.
Gage pulled her up to stand, gentlemanly and kind. He held her hand as they walked to the car, still feeling like they were stuck in some romantic film showing at the local drive-in.
But he didn’t mind at all. He had no idea how to be romantic, but if she was enjoying what he was doing, which seemed to come naturally, he would have no problem wooing her.
They drove into the darkness back to Rylee’s apartment. Gage felt that the flow of their conversations was easy, the way a river flows down an embankment. Rylee talked about her job as a school nurse and the way her parents always pressured her to become a doctor.
“You lose a lot of personal engagement when you’re a doctor,” Rylee said, peering out the window. “You get lost in the politics of the role, and you start to forget why you chose that career in the first place.”
Gage nodded, the streetlights flicking by like fireflies.
“Is that why you like working at Candlewood?” Gage asked.
Rylee nodded. Her hair was still looking disheveled from their romp in the bathroom, but he didn’t care. He found it to be viciously sexy and cute at the same time. “The kids need me, and they’re at such a vulnerable age,” Rylee said. “I like to think I can have a somewhat positive influence on them.”
Gage smirked at her from the side of his face, glancing over briefly. “I’m sure you have a positive influence over everyone you meet, Rylee.”
He could feel her smiling as he drove on, a glow blooming inside his chest that he never wanted to dim.
They arrived at her place half an hour later. The time seemed to have flown by. He parked right outside her apartment complex. There was a beat of silence in between their endless stream of chatter, and Gage worried that his expectations had been too high for her for the night.
But Rylee dashed those fears away quickly as she turned and leaned her elbow against the back of her seat. She played with a strand of hair as she spoke like a young schoolgirl.
“Do you want to come upstairs?” Rylee asked.
Gage felt his heart illuminate. He nodded at her, the smile on his face a permanent etching as long as Rylee was around. “I definitely would,” he replied.
She led him by the hand into the lobby, the elevator, and down the hall to her apartment. She unlocked the door swiftly, appearing cool and calm.
“I don’t remember if I cleaned up or not.” Rylee snorted. “So please, don’t let this first impression ruin what you like about me.”
Gage had his mouth open, ready for a witty comeback, when Rylee flicked on the lights. What he saw was the opposite of a bomb going off; the place was so neat that it seemed almost not lived in.
He turned to her as she placed her purse on the kitchen counter. “Did you just move in here?” he asked, not completely joking.
He followed her into the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, noticing how tremendously neat that room appeared too. It was like an ad right out of an Ikea catalog.
She squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose at him as she reached into her cupboard for wine glasses.
“Hilarious,” she said sarcastically. “I know. I know. I’ve been told I am a bit of a, how do you say? A clean freak.”
Gage watched her glide through the room with ease, opening an armoire packed with multiple choices of wine beverages. She slid one out and placed it on the counter in the kitchen as Gage continued to look on.
He shrugged, but the smirk remained.
“I can appreciate it, honestly,” he said, peering back into the living room. “I, too, have been accused of enjoying immaculate decluttering, if you will.”
Rylee giggled as she twisted the corkscrew and then popped the cork out of the bottle with a rigorous tenacity. It wasn’t her first rodeo.
“Oh,” she said, sniffing the opening of the bottle.