how he’d handled that. I let him know I’d prefer to take a ride share, drive separately since I didn’t know him. I hadn’t driven myself tonight since I wasn’t sure if I’d be drinking and not only had he not gotten offended, he’d pulled the app up himself and got me a ride to our destination.
He even followed us.
His sleek Mercedes Benz crushed ice swiftly behind, a smooth and handsome chrome finish. The ride actually reminded me of my own. I had an SUV that I’d bought with some of the alimony I got from the divorce. A note would have taken me a little bit to pay off otherwise, which was why it surprised me someone of his age drove such a thing. I knew it was him behind the Honda Civic I was in, though. I got a flash of that cool smile of his through the windshield whenever my driver stopped at a light or turned a corner. It was definitely him behind us, and I suppose that type of vehicle could be driven by a young professional. This guy Ramses must have done pretty well for himself.
And he’d picked a pretty packed place.
Several people were coming in and out the pizza house he’d punched in for my driver to head to, and after thanking my driver for his service, I ventured outside.
The elements hit me right away, certainly used to this back home in Jersey. Winters over there could be just as torrential, the snow flurries picking up and making my heels slick in the slush. Evie really would kill me for ruining her shoes, but considering I was out tonight in the first place because of her, I would say the score was settled. I had a night full of awkward shit around people I didn’t know.
“Whoa, there. Careful.”
A hand folded around my arm, steadying me. Ramses was suddenly out in the snow with me, tossing me just one more of those candy-coated smiles. It lit up his whole face, which, of course, managed to make him just that much more appealing. Something told me this young guy broke a lot of hearts.
Fighting my own smile, I thanked him, allowing him to right me and use his large body to fight the elements. He acted as a human shield, all the way into the pizza shop, a chime at the door sounding as we both brushed snow off our coats and out of our hair. It gathered in thick banks on his. His hair was so thick. He cleared it with the precision of one who’d done it many times once inside, doing the same with the long wool coat he’d acquired at coat check.
“I got just the thing for you,” he said, shrugging his coat off his big shoulders. He folded the garment over his arm, and without it, the smooth gray of a tailored suit hugged the stocky width of broad shoulders. He was incredibly lean, generally, but his upper body could easily challenge a linebacker’s. I knew a hell of a lot about the way those guys were built, more than I’d liked.
I wet my lips, easing out of the doorway to let a few patrons leave. I brushed my hair off too. “What do you mean?”
“I called the pizza in ahead,” he said, surprising me. I struggled a bit with the snow and he helped me by flicking the remainder off my shoulders. He laughed. “Figured you’d want the best. But if you mind, we can order you something else. I just figured it wouldn’t hurt for it to be ready before we got here. You know, in case you were really hungry?”
What an unusually considerate thing for him to do. Not that people never did things like that, but still, unusual considering our particular circumstances. I’d invited him out tonight but only after I’d been a little rude to him. I was well aware of that, hindsight twenty-twenty.
But I’d wanted to be alone.
He hadn’t let me, of course, doing one better and actually trying to get me to come down. It’d been a very unusual situation, which triggered my thoughts about all this now. He’d taken the initiative here. Like he wanted to please me or something. Like this was a date.
Or something.
His lighthearted expression completely faltered at the sight of mine. He raised his hands. “Really, you won’t offend me if we switch it up. And actually.” He grabbed a menu off the greeter’s podium. “I can show