Page 48 of Lost Love on 6th Street

“Yeah, well I don’t usually have guys calling me in the middle of the night to take me on adventures,” she says with a smirk.

“You don’t? I’m shocked,” I say. And I mean it.

Eleanor laughs it off. “You’re the first, Luke.”

First. Only.

The song ends, and Eleanor still doesn’t make a move to go.

I trace my thumb over the top of the steering wheel. What do we have to hold us together if not for the photo? “Well, I hope that the museum appreciates your research.”

“Me too,” she says in a soft voice. “I’d like to stay in Austin if I can.”

I withhold a grin. “Austin would like you to stay in it too.”

Eleanor giggles. “Sounds dirty.”

Thank god it’s dark in here. I know I’m blushing. “That came out wrong.”

“I’m just giving you a hard time.”

If only she knew how true the double entendre in that was. “Fun plans this weekend?”

Eleanor tilts her head from side to side. “No, not really. You’ve been my plans most weekends.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, leaning onto the center console subtly.

“Mhm. You have singlehandedly prevented me from being a hermit,” she says. Her eyes fall to my arm on the console, then rise back to meet mine. “I think I’m overdue for a weekend where I rot alone in my pajamas all day.”

I tense the muscles in my thighs. If only she knew how sexy that sounds. “Well, I think I have to uphold my tradition of making you leave the house.”

She quirks her eyebrow. “You’ve got some ideas?”

Lots. All kinds. “Yeah, I’ve got one.”

“I thought you were busy.”

“I have Saturday night, shockingly,” I say.

“Don’t you need a night off?”

“Would rather spend it with you.” Why dance around the truth?

Eleanor pauses. Her lips lift. “Okay, I’m listening.”

I peer down at her feet. “Let me guess. You haven’t worn your boots once yet.”

“Hey! I’m working up the courage to!”

“Eleanor, it’s your right as an Austinite to wear your boots!”

She crosses her arms over her chest and pulls a foot up to rest on the edge of her seat. “I’m not technically an Austinite.”

“I’m an Austinite and I’m dubbing you an Austinite, alright? I’m making you shed your Chicagoan skin.”

Eleanor’s face squinches together. “Fine.”

I laugh. “We’ll hit a honkytonk this weekend. You’ll break in your boots the best way I know how.”

---