Page 43 of Digging Up Love
Her smile broadened. “Am.” She puffed her cheeks out. “I guess I didn’t trust it.” Her voice raised at the end, almost a question.
Ah, trust. That, he understood. “How’s this. I’m here, you’re here.”
“You are.” She laughed and shot her eyes toward the lake and back. “I think that’s the problem.”
He raised a quizzical brow.
“Texting felt so much easier. You weren’t here, and I could pretend the stakes were low. Then you showed up early on Monday, and I wasn’t prepared and I kinda—”
“Freaked out?”
Alisha laughed, and Quentin joined in. “Thank God,” he said. “Here I was feeling like I’d catfished you.”
“Catfished me?”
“Yeah.” Jamming his hands in his pockets, he wiggled his toe deeper into the gravel. “I thought we had a moment, back in March.” Several moments. Really good moments. “And then everything was so fun and easy over the phone, but when I got here, you seemed ... disappointed.”
Alisha gawped at him. “Oh my gosh, no.” She shook her head with a short laugh. “No. The opposite.”
“The opposite?” He couldn’t resist.
“Now you’re fishing for compliments. Shameless.” But she sunk her teeth into her luscious bottom lip, grinning. Had she been doing that during their texting sessions? Man, he’d been missing out, big time.
“Wanna finish the run together?”
Entranced by her lips, he almost missed her question. When she stopped speaking, he snapped out of it and found uncertainty clouding her eyes.
She clocked her gaze down his legs. “You know what? Never mind. No way I could keep up with you.”
Reaching for her hand, he caught himself at the last second and raised it instead to halt her excuses. “Stop, Alisha. Yes, let’s run together.” He started jogging backward before she could change her mind and disappear on him again. “I don’t always need to go fast.”
“Oh ho, I see.” She cocked one eyebrow with a smile.
Oops, walked right into that one.“What I meant was ... Who says you couldn’t keep up?”
“Nice save.” She stayed put for a moment, the summer sun framing her in a golden glow, her shadow stretching along the path. “Okay, just promise not to make fun of my speed.”
He held up three fingers, jogging in place. “Scout’s honor.”
Alisha caught up to him, and he let her set the pace. Below his norm, but not painfully so. And totally worth it for more time with her.
“Do you always run by the lake?” he asked after a moment.
“No, sometimes I stay closer to home. But with all the hills and blind curves? Let’s just say I’ve wound up leaping into the weeds more than once to avoid being roadkill.”
“I can see that.” He frowned. “This is my first run since we arrived. I need to get some miles in, but do you think it’s a good idea?”
She sniffed and shot him a look, perhaps mulling over what he was really asking. “Honestly? I’d stick to the jogging path if I were you. But the good news is, you’re famous around here. Everyone knows you guys are working on Wayne Blake’s land, even though they don’t know about the dinosaur. So in that respect, you’re good.” She paused, breathing heavily. “Gosh, this sucks.”
“It is what it is.” A platitude he’d learned from his father.
“Which is shitty,” she said.
What had it been like for her to grow up here? She was the Blakes’ granddaughter, sure. But she was also one of the lone Black people—maybe the only one, without her sister—in a small town in the middle of nowhere. She’d never brought it up, but he wondered if she ever felt a sense of isolation.
Yet she’d come back to take care of her grandparents. Devotion to family, second-guessing their feelings, those things they shared. But he wanted to show her she didn’t need to keep up her defenses with him.
The path led them back to the parking lot, and Quentin’s mind raced for ways to draw out the evening. Their easy camaraderie was back, and he wanted to keep it going—hadto keep it going, even if only for the summer. Even if only fortoday. Screw the consequences.
