Page 8 of Crazy Pucking Love
He nodded, and I shook my head. Then I went diving for the packet, trying to be as demure about it as possible, although how does one demurely dig a sweetener packet out from between one’s boobs? Answer: you don’t. You just grab it and toss it out as quickly as you can.
“Okay, my turn.” I picked up the packet that’d have a story to tell his buddies, and Dane formed the uprights with his fingers as I lined up my shot. The packet skidded across the table and fell off the other side.
“Wait. Redo.” I grabbed another pink packet. The smack of my fingers hitting the paper sounded solid, and the little packet flew—a bit high.
And hit Dane right in the eye.
“Oh, shoot!” I rounded the table to his side of the booth. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
He kept the eye I’d injured squinted, and blinked the other. “It’s fine. I’m impressed at your power, actually.”
“Here, let me see.” I placed my hand on the side of his face and gently turned it toward me, and he slowly opened his eye. It was a bit red and watery, but thankfully intact—not that I thought it wouldn’t be, but well, seeing an intact eyeball was always a bit comforting compared to the other option. I gently dragged my thumb under it, hoping it was soothing. “I think you’ll live.”
“What a relief,” he said, lifting his hand and placing it over mine. “But for the record, I think you should stick with darts.”
“I hit you in the eye, and you’re still willing to hand me a dart? Now that’s trust.”
He laughed. “Let me rephrase. I think you should stick with darts, while I stand behind you, far out of range of anything you might toss, flick, or kick.” He folded my hand into his as he lowered them both to his lap.
My heart took off on a high-speed race, and my skin hummed under his touch. From this close, I could see the different shades of brown in his irises, that he had a freckle on his right cheek, and I had a great view of the whiskers that lined his jaw and hinted at an almost goatee.
And when one side of his mouth lifted, he got a sexy crease in his cheek. His woodsy cologne invaded my senses, and when he brushed his thumb over my hand, my pulse scattered, racing and beating and leaving me dizzy in the best possible way.
“Thanks for keeping me company tonight,” he said. “It’s been way more interesting than most of my nights here in this diner.”
“Right back at you. Well, not the diner part, because this is my first trip here, but you get what I mean…good night. Not like as in bye, but like it was a good night. Is one. Yeah.” Sometimes I wished there was an emergency brake on my mouth, one that I could yank before I said the wrong thing, although the unspoken words would probably pile together like train cars and make a mess anyway.
Dane’s grin widened, then he brushed my bangs from my eye and cupped my cheek.
For a moment, I was so sure he’d lean in and kiss me, and anticipation danced along my nerve endings, every inch of me longing for the press of his lips to mine. Instead, he asked, “You tired?”
“Not really. You?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more awake,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. I’d heard of intense connections, but I’d never experienced one before. There was no other word for what was happening between us right now—anyway, I hoped he felt it as strongly as I did. It seemed as if we’d known each other for a long time, not a mere couple of hours. A muscle in his jaw flexed and he slowly lowered his hand. “I should get home, though.”
Disappointment mixed in with the longing coursing through me, putting a dent in my hope. “Yeah, me, too. I’ve got to figure out the campus tomorrow. Map out all my classes, so I know where to go on Tuesday.”
“This is your first semester?”
Crap.On one hand, yay for not exuding the freshman vibe so strongly that he seemed surprised by the fact that I was one, but he also sounded a bit apprehensive. Still, I didn’t want to lie to him. If I expected honesty in a potential boyfriend—and obviously I was hoping Dane and I might be headed in that direction—I had to be honest, too. “Yeah.”
A crinkle formed between his dark eyebrows. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”And have been for all of two whole weeks.
“Wow. You’re so young.”
“And you’re so old?”
“Feels like it sometimes,” he said.
“That’s probably because not sleeping makes it feel like you live two days for everyone else’s one. That’s what it makes me feel like, anyway.”
He nodded. “True. If I feel like this at twenty-one, how am I going to feel at forty?”
“Yeah, that’s depressing. Let’s not end on that note.”
He cracked a smile and tightened his hold on my hand, which reinflated my hope. “You’re right. Since you can’t be trusted around eyes, and I can’t be trusted around cleavage…” His gaze dipped to the scooped neckline of my shirt, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He reached up, taking his hat off and raking his fingers through his hair before setting it back on his head. “Best out of five through the salt and pepper uprights gets to walk the other person home?”
