“Iamleaving. I’ll be back around closing time, though. I think I might stay the night here and see if I can catch whoever is vandalizing the restaurants.” There were several days of a quiet stretch between incidents, but we got hit for afourth time last night. It wasn’t too costly, though. This time they just scattered the trash everywhere again. That’s a lot easier to clean up than repainting has been. That may be because Brad keeps bringing Theo to help. I should probably give Theo a heads-up that the more he complains about a chore, the more likely he’s going to be made to do that chore.
I plan to confront whoever is doing the damage tonight and see if I can’t figure out their motive and talk them down before I get the police involved. I’m confident most things can be handled with a simple, honest conversation rather than a dramatic intervention, but I have no idea who I’m dealing with.
Darin leans in and quietly says, “Who you going out with? Lily?”
I dry my hands on a towel and nod once.
Darin smiles and walks away. I like that my friends like Lily. They brought her up a couple of times after our poker night, but I think they could tell it bothered me. I didn’t like discussing Lily when she wasn’t a part of my life.
But now it looks like there’s a possibility she’s back in the picture. Maybe. This might be why I’m so nervous: because I know what a huge risk Lily is taking by going out with me tonight. If things progress with us, that could impact her life in negative ways. Which might be why I started to feel the immense pressure two hours ago of making sure this date is worth it for her.
But I smell like I’m terrified of vampires, so it’s already not going my way.
I pull into the parking lot at five minutes to six. Lily must have been waiting for me, because she exits her store and locks the door behind her before I’m even out of my car.
As soon as I lay eyes on her, I get even more nervous. She looks incredible. She’s wearing a black jumpsuit and heels. She pulls on her jacket and meets me in the middle of the parking lot.
I lean in and greet her with a quick kiss on her cheek. “You look stunning.” I swear she reddens a little after I say that.
“Do I? I didn’t sleep last night. I feel like I look ninety.”
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
“Emmy ran a fever all night. She’s better now, but…” Lily yawns. “I’m sorry. I just drank coffee. It’ll hit in a minute.”
“It’s okay. I’m not tired, but I do smell like garlic.”
“I like garlic.”
“Good thing.”
Lily leans back on her heels and looks down at her outfit. “I wasn’t sure what to wear since I’ve never been to this restaurant.”
“I’ve never been there, either, so I have no idea. But I have a feeling you’ll be fine.” I chose a new restaurant I’ve been wanting to try. It’s about a forty-five-minute drive, but I figured that would give us time to catch up on the way over.
“I have a present for you,” she says. “It’s in my car. Let me grab it.”
I follow her to her car and watch her retrieve something from the console. When she hands it to me, I can’t hold back a smile. “Is this your journal?” She read another quick passage to me last night, but she was so embarrassed reading it out loud, she refused to give me more.
“That’s one of them. We’ll see how tonight goes before I give you the other one.”
“No pressure or anything.” I walk her to my car and open the passenger door for her. She starts to yawn again as I’m closing her door.
I feel bad, like maybe she’s too exhausted for this date. I have no idea what it’s like to raise a child. I feel kind of selfish that I’m not offering to reschedule, so before I back out of the parking lot, I speak up. “If you’d rather go home and sleep, we can do this next weekend.”
“There’s nothing else I’d rather do than this, Atlas. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” She clicks her seat belt. “You actually do smell like garlic.”
I think she’s kidding. Lily used to joke all the time when we were younger. It’s one of the things I loved most about her—that she always seemed to be in a good mood despite all the bad things surrounding her. It’s that same strength I admired in her in the days I was with her after she found out she was pregnant in the emergency room. I know that was one of the lowest points of her life, but she was able to smile through it all, and even spent an entire evening impressing my friends with her humor during a poker night.
Everyone handles stress differently, and none of those ways is necessarily wrong, but Lily handles it with grace. And grace just happens to be the quality I find the most attractive in people.
“How’d you manage to get away on a Saturday night?” Lily asks.
I hate that I’m driving because I want to look at her while I respond. I’ve never seen her look this… womanly?Is that a compliment? I don’t even know. I probably shouldn’t say it out loud in case it isn’t, but when Lily and I fell in love, neither of us were what we would now consider adults. But it’s different tonight. We’re grown-ups with careers, and she’s a mother and a boss and independent.It’s sexy as hell.
The only other time I’ve spent with her as adults was when she was technically still with Ryle, so it felt wrong thinking of her the way I am now.Like I want her.
I keep my focus on the road and try not to create a lull in our conversation, but I think I might be a little flustered. That surprises me.