He looked at the server until the woman was done talking, and then he looked at Samantha. “I don’t want any.” He smiled.
She looked at the server, and even though her mouth was watering, she said, “I’ll just have water. Thank you.”
Chapter 29
Water? Brent triednot to let his surprise show. But had he heard her right? Sammy had said she’d stick with the water. Things were off to a good start. No, a great start. A better start than he could have imagined.
“So, I was talking about Jesus, but since I just had to turn down wine, let’s skip ahead a little.” Sammy sounded nervous now and was avoiding eye contact.
She held a small fist in front of her mouth and cleared her throat. “So it might not sound like much, but I promise that it is. This is day seventeen.”
His heart pounded. She was waiting for him to say something. He didn’t know what to say. “Wow,” he managed.
She looked scared. He couldn’t stand that. He didn’t want to make her scared of anything ever again. He quickly reached across the table and took her hand. “I know I’ve been wowing you with Shakespeare lately, but I’m still not very good with words.”
She laughed.
He caressed her hand. “That is so, so awesome, Sammy.”Don’t sound surprised. “I mean, I’m not completely shocked. I knew you could do it. And I figured if you’d been going to church, then things had gotten better. But seventeen days! Well, you know, that’s a lot. Are you working the steps?”
She nodded.
“Do you have a sponsor?”
She nodded again.
He knew he was smiling like a fool, but he couldn’t stop.
“Speaking of Shakespeare,” she said, her voice taking on a teasing tone. “Shakespeare?”
He laughed. “Yeah. I don’t know. It was the best I could do.”
“Remember in high school when they made us readRomeo and Juliet, how we used to write notes to each other, trying to sound like them, saying things that didn’t even make sense?”
He laughed again. “Yeah. We did that, and we weren’t even dating yet.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Because you were dating Alicia Coombs.” Venom dripped off the name.