hall, Bruce melting out of the shadows to tail them, like always. Ian spotted him right away, and his small, curving little smile left Carter uneasy. I see right through you, that smile said.
They didn’t linger, thankfully. “Miss Cook, lovely to see you outside of work,” Ian said with a quick, correct bow before his little crew swept out the door. Carter wondered how he’d missed the Jag on his way in; too distracted by his own plans, he guessed.
“I can’t believe he and Ghost get along,” Leah mused when they were gone, shaking her head.
“Nobody can. It’s weird.”
She chuckled, and some of tension she’d been holding melted off her face.
Good, he thought. He didn’t like seeing her tense, or worried.
Boy, he was in trouble, wasn’t he?
“Leah–” he started, and her parents came bustling back behind the counter.
Her dad was scowling to himself, but her mom was beaming.
“Leah!” Marie gripped her daughter’s arms. “He’s going to buy the building and let us keep running the shop! He wants to put in a bookshop upstairs, even! Nothing’s been there for years, and a bookshop will be perfect!”
Leah smiled back, though less manically. “That’s awesome! Why is Dad making that face, though?”
“He’s too fancy,” Marshall said. “I don’t trust that.”
“Oh, hush.” His wife swatted his arm. “He’s just being him,” she told Leah. “Don’t mind him. Oh, Carter! Hi!” She was bubbly as a schoolgirl. To Leah: “Here, sweetie, give me that apron back and you kids go sit down. Do you want the usual, Carter?”
“Um, yes, ma’am.”
Five minutes later, they were seated at Leah’s usual table, him with his sandwich and tea, Leah with a bagel and a latte.
She looked a little shocked. “So that’s happening, I guess.”
“Looks like.”
She licked a bit of cream cheese off her thumb, then propped her chin on her fist and stared at him, a small, enigmatic smile plucking at the corners of her mouth.
“What?” he asked, prickling with a sudden awareness.
“I’m just…I told you this time yesterday about my parents’ problem, and twenty-four hours later there’s a solution. It’s…stunning, actually.” She sighed, and maybe it was his imagination, but he thought it sounded dreamy. “Lean Dogs really do get stuff done around here, huh?”
Lean Dogs meant all of them, and in this case even included Ian, but her gaze was fixed on him – was warm for him. So it felt personal, her attention – the way she was so clearly, openly impressed.
His throat was tight. He set his sandwich down and coughed discreetly into his fist, wanting to move beneath her gaze. Not to get away, no, but keeping still was hard, suddenly. His palms tingled, and his heart gave a few hard beats, and it was that same tension that had happened at Ava’s house. The same insistent, nearly choking urge to grab her and kiss her.
It had been like that with Jazz at first, way back when. Shocking, heated need. But that was where the similarities ended.
“All I did was ask,” he said.
“And delivered.” She gave him one last look, her gaze warm, and appraising – lingering, unmistakably, on his mouth a moment – before she sat back and reached for her bagel.
The moment had all the markers of slipping away. She’d ask him about how working with Elijah was going, or he’d ask her how her day at work had been, and they’d slip back beneath this sudden swell of mutual something else, back into the safe, warm waters of friendship.
Fuck it. If he could have the conversation he’d had last night with Jazz, he could have this one – even if it was alarmingly more nerve-wracking.
Endings hurt. Beginnings left him breathless.
“Leah,” he said, too firmly. Her head and brows lifted, surprise evident on her face. “Do you wanna have dinner this weekend?”
She stared at him, frozen.
“Not dinner like this.” He gestured to the table between them. “I mean a real dinner. Where I’ll be wearing real clothes, and I’ll pay. I mean – a date. Do you want to go on a date?”
She stared another moment, and then blinked, her gaze dropping. She set her bagel down slowly, and took a few breaths. When she lifted her face, her jaw was tense in a way that didn’t bode well.
His stomach sank.
“You want to go on a date?” Her tone was careful – it reminded him of Elijah’s tone, in those moments when he was trying to get a read on Carter. Unsure of his intentions.