Greek food? Because if not, there’s Italian or Chinese, and I think there’s a Mexican place in Dryden—”
“Greek sounds great. I lived in Cyprus for six months for a movie shoot, so I could definitely go for that,” I assured him, wanting to assuage his nerves. Because his nerves were making me nervous.
“You’ve really been all over the world, haven’t you? It must have been amazing. I’ve been here. And North Carolina on vacation. And California that time …” His voice drifted off, and he cleared his throat. Now the cabin of the truck was full of other things. Memories that were both sexually charged and wrapped in bitterness.
“Yeah, well traveling was definitely a perk of the job,” I said wanting to change the subject—to move away from remembrances of that weekend years ago. I didn’t want the date—if that’s what this was—to tank before it even got started.
“Do you miss it?” he asked, turning onto the main road that would take us into Kirksville.
“The job?”
“Yeah.”
“I do. I miss it a lot,” I admitted. I had purposefully not talked about the career I had left behind because I had chosen to come home and didn’t want to feel any regret. I had learned life was too short to second guess yourself, even if I second-guessed myself a dozen times every day for every tiny thing I did.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to it?” Why did the question feel loaded with subtext?
“I don’t know. I don’t want to give it up entirely. I worked too hard. But I also needed a break. Things happened ... and I had to reevaluate what I was doing. I didn’t like the person I had become out there.” My voice was hoarse, and my mouth had become dry.
“Things happened?”
“Isn’t that the turn off for Kirksville,” I said, pointing to the sign just as Kyle drove past it.
“Shit, yeah, it was. Sorry.” He quickly pulled into a turnoff and put his signal on so he could flip around. “Hold on.” And then he put his hand on my thigh, gripping tightly as he did a U-Turn in the road. I slid across the seat and found myself pressed into his side, his fingers still holding on. His breathing seemed to deepen, and my belly flipped and rolled. It would be so easy to turn my head. To nuzzle into his neck. I could smell him. I could feel him. His heat. The searing burn of his hand on my leg. Every cell in my body responded to him.
Once he had corrected the truck, he pulled his hand away. “Sorry ’bout that.” Then I had no choice but to move back to my side of the cab; otherwise, it would have gotten uncomfortable. Even if I wanted to stay where I was, glued to his side like I belonged there.
Get a grip, Whitney.
Thankfully, all talk about my past was forgotten as we pulled up in front of the Greek restaurant Niko’s. “Hang on,” he said, getting out of the truck. He rushed around to my side and opened the door for me, holding out his hand for me to take so I could get down. “Don’t want you falling on your face.” He chuckled, and I laughed too.
He let go of my hand but moved it to the small of my back as he directed me to the front door. Once inside, the hostess greeted us and then led us to a booth tucked into an alcove beneath leafy vines hanging from the ceiling.
“This is nice,” I observed, taking in the mosaic tile and crisp white linens. It was all very bright yet cozy, with candles in tiny lanterns on the table and Greek music playing from the sound system.
“I discovered this place when I was working a job in town. I had been hired to re-landscape the town hall, and Lucky on my crew recommended we come here for lunch. After that, we came every day.” Kyle handed me a menu.
“How many people work for you?” I asked.
“Five right now, used to be six, but Daniel Alder moved to Virginia to take care of his mom who lives there,” he answered, lifting his eyes from the menu to meet mine.
“It looks like you stay pretty busy. Business seems to be doing well.”
Kyle shrugged. “It has its ebbs and flows. We’re busy now because we’re coming into summer. We’re usually slammed up until October, and then it dies off a bit during the winter months