Page 86 of At the Heart of It
“Could I interest you in dinner?” he asked.
She seemed to hesitate. “You mean that restaurant you mentioned? Cactus?”
“Sure, or wherever you want to go.”
Kate glanced down at her shoes. His shoes. “Under the circumstances, I should probably?—”
“How about my place?”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out. But Kate looked up at him with something that seemed like relief. “You are less than a mile away.”
Jonah’s heart did a funny little hiccup in the center of his chest. “True.”
“Okay, I can grab takeout,” she said. “I saw a drive-through Thai place down the street.”
Jonah grinned. “Why don’t you just be honest here, Kate.”
Her eyes widened like he’d just stepped on her foot. “What?”
“You just want to see my cat.” He smiled and watched her face, wondering what the hell had prompted such a strong reaction. “It’s understandable.”
Kate gave an uneasy laugh and clamped the lid down on the crate. “You caught me,” she said. “So do you want to meet at your place?”
“Sounds good. You pick up the Thai food, and I’ll move all the socks and underwear out of the living room.”
“Your house is neat as a pin,” she said. “I stopped by unannounced before, remember.”
“Oh, I remember.” He remembered a lot more than that. “I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”
Chapter 13
Kate rang Jonah’s doorbell with her elbow. She had a bag of takeout Thai in one hand, a six-pack of IPA in the other, and her heart in her throat.
“Hey there!” Jonah threw open the door and grinned at her, then stepped aside to usher her in. “Looks like you found a way to change clothes.”
“Yeah. There was a Victoria’s Secret right by the Thai place, so I ran in and grabbed sweatpants and flip-flops.”
“I like it,” he said, and Kate felt her cheeks grow warm. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned Victoria’s Secret. And maybe she shouldn’t have bought the cute bra-and-panty set she’d grabbed on impulse, reassuring herself it was only because her black undies might show beneath the new white sweatpants. None of it had anything to do with Jonah.
“Denial is a form of self-abuse.”
Viv’s words were a chant in her head.
“You’re lying to yourself instead of someone else.”
Kate gritted her teeth and gripped her purchases a little tighter.
“Let me take that.” Jonah grabbed the six-pack from her hand and started toward the living room.
“I notice you grabbed the beer first,” Kate said as she followed behind him.
“That looked the heaviest,” he said. “Besides, I wanted to see what you got.”
Kate watched him head toward the couch and felt relieved. Something about that felt more casual than sitting at the dining room table with placemats and straight-backed chairs. It had nothing to do with wanting to cuddle up close to him on the couch.
She almost believed that as she began unpacking the food on Jonah’s coffee table, piling compostable containers of coconut rice and lemony tom kha gai soup in neat little rows beside his remote control.
“Nice choice on the IPA,” Jonah said. “I’ve actually been to Big One’s.”
