type things and stuff?” His lips crest into a tickled smirk, and I groan.
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Aren’t you a writer, though?” he pushes, and as much as I’d like to hit him back with some witty retort, that’s kind of exactly the problem.
“I’ll have you know that for some writers, words are so much easier to convey on the page than verbally, and I just happen to be one of them.”
He smiles then, a genuinely friendly smile, and then finishes it with a wink. “I’m teasing, Holley. You do just fine with words either way.”
“Can I take that to mean you’ve been reading the articles?”
He nods and then waggles his eyebrows. “And some of your old stuff.”
“What? Where are you finding my old stuff?”
He shrugs his hands into his jean pockets. “I might be a dinosaur, but I do know how to search the internet.”
Oh. Right. The internet. Somehow, I’d forgotten that little beauty existed for a moment.
Instead of verbalizing yet another blunder, I hum and nod, hiking the little backpack I put together with my notebook and my lunch and a couple other things like sunscreen and bug spray up on my shoulder.
“Think we should get those things unloaded?” I ask, and Jake nods.
“I’ll go do it now.”
As he heads for the trailer, I go to my back seat and grab the heavy quilted blanket I’ve brought for them and the picnic basket packed full of snacky-type foods.
It’s heavy, but I manage to hook it over my elbow, prop it against my hip, and hump its weight across the parking lot to where Jake is working diligently on taking some straps off the machines.
I watch as he works, and a bead of sweat runs down between my breasts. It’s hot out—it’s August—but I bet if you asked the weatherman to check, he’d say Jake Brent doing manual labor makes the heat index shoot up an additional ten degrees.
He glances up and spots me with the basket, and then jumps down to take it and its weight from me swiftly.
“Damn,” he says when he feels how heavy it is. “How much stuff do you have in here?”
“A lot?” I shrug. “No shellfish, though.”
He laughs at that. “That’s good. And probably for more than one reason. I don’t know that shellfish is what I think of when I picture picnic food anyway.”
“I’ve actually never been on a real picnic,” I admit. “Hopefully, I didn’t completely miss the mark.”
His eyebrows draw together as he considers me. “You’ve never been on a picnic?”
I shake my head. “It’s…well…the guy I dated for a while…it wasn’t really his vibe, you know? He was into nice restaurants, fancy bars…that sort of thing.”
He nods, but there’s something in his eyes that doesn’t quite read as affirmation. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but to be honest, I’m a little too scared to ask.
My heart is already beating a million miles a minute over a teeny, tiny peek into my vulnerability. I can’t even imagine what I’d say or do—maybe pass out—if he tried to ask me more.
Luckily, he doesn’t, taking the basket and climbing up onto the trailer to strap it to the back four-wheeler instead. Once it’s secure, I toss him the blanket, and he puts that in the front compartment.
When he notices me fanning my face with my hand, he smirks and asks, “Want to just meet back at my house after this one for the debriefing?”
I’m not too proud to agree. “That works for me.”
“Good. I can just bring the four-wheelers home with me for the night, then.”
Now that I’m empty-handed, I’m markedly more awkward. I do not know where to put those pesky little paddles attached to my arms.
Do I vogue?
Do I put them in my nonexistent pockets?
Do I let them hang limply at my sides?
I just don’t know.
My flight instinct is buzzing, but I stand there anyway as Jake backs the first four-wheeler off the trailer and drives it over to the entrance of the trail, and then he walks back and reverses the second one off, pulling it to a stop next to me.
He’s put his sunglasses on at some point during all this, so I can’t see his eyes anymore, but he’s definitely smiling as he holds out a hand.
“Want a ride?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. I can walk.”
“Do we really have to fight about this every time?”
Foiled by a threat I know he’ll follow through with—staying bitterly determined until I give in—I jump up on the back,