Page 20 of All of You

“Dude, I am.” It kind of annoyed me he didn’t believe me.

“Why?” The disbelief etched on his face was not flattering.

I gave him a look. “We hit it off at the concert in September. We chatted on and off after that. I went with her to a dinner thing last weekend, and today, I’m taking her to lunch.”

“You—I don’t know what to say.” He stood there, his broad shoulders slumped slightly, his dark eyes wide. His bright smile then broke out, and he nodded before flashing his eyebrows. “This is good. I like this.”

“That was quick.” A chuckle escaped me at his typically positive response. He was nothing if not a Pollyanna.

“I’m happy for you. Maybe a little nervous, because she seems like she could chew you up and spit you out, but… yeah. I can see it.” He eyed me as we walked to our cars.

“What can you see?” I asked, twirling my keys back and forth around my finger.

“I can see your appeal to her. To anyone, but especially someone like her.”

A car full of other twenty-somethings from the church drove by and honked at us, which reminded me of the time. “I gotta get going, but I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

“I’ll want a full report,” he said through a wide smile.

“You won’t get one.”

I slammed my truck’s door and started it up, taking a moment to appreciate Thatcher’s willingness to see me as desirable to Whit. If there was one thing I wasn’t sure about, it was that I was a believable counterpart for her.

She was extremely talented, famous, beautiful, and wealthy.

I was extremely broken, uncertain, and generally out of my depth with life lately. But I could be good to her, and I could be kind, and we could be friends.

And the part of me that stood alert whenever she was near me, the part that thought about what her hair would feel like under my fingertips, or how she’d smell in that sweet shadowy spot between her neck and her jaw… those parts would have to lock down.

CHAPTER NINE

Whit

Iwalked into our lunch date exactly on time at half past noon, the shiny Country superstar Whit Grantham version of myself readied after some deep breathing in the car on the way, but Ben was already there.

“Is my watch slow?” I asked as he held the door for me.

“I doubt it. I just walked in.”

And then, he did it—what I imagined he’d do if we were really dating. What I’d told him to do. He was doing just that.

But my heart still skipped a beat, my breath catching as he leaned down with one hand on my upper arm, pressed a soft kiss to my cheek, then pulled back to look in my eyes.

“Good to see you.” His voice sounded somehow deeper, richer, more.

“Good to see you, too.” Why had the words been breathless?

Just then, the hostess gestured for us to follow her, only hesitating a second when she registered I was me.

We got settled in our seats, the din of the restaurant mostly covering the Is that Whit Grantham? and the Who’s the guy? shimmering around us. She sat us in a booth out of the way, which I appreciated on one hand, because we did need to talk, but on another, we needed to be seen.

“It’s October—a nice enough day. We can walk a few blocks holding hands after this and make sure someone snaps a photo,” he said quietly over his menu when he saw me looking around. He’d probably realized no one could see us without walking out of the way.

“Good idea.”

After we’d ordered, we chatted about our mornings. Both of us had been to church, though different ones. If he was surprised to find I went to church, he didn’t show it—after all, I’d had the same thought about him when he’d walked out of church to pick up the phone the first time we’d talked, and I hadn’t mentioned it.

And then, the time for the questions came.

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