Page 19 of Holidate Fail
He couldn’t keep his mouth straight and broke into a grin.
“You got me.” Dahlia let out a small laugh and shook her head. “You said you have a boat? You should rent yourselves out as boat captains. There are some places that are hard for me to access in marshes, and we don’t always have the resources to make it happen.”
“That’s…wow, that’s a really great idea. I do have a captain’s license.” He squeezed the hand that rested on her lap. “Thank you.”
Her tongue wet her lower lip. He inched forward, his eyes focused on her mouth. One quick, friendly kiss. Just one. He couldn’t wait anymore.
Her breath caught, and she leaned toward him.
“Got another row!” Heath exclaimed. Dahlia snapped back in the chair and held up her hand for a quick congratulatory slap.
“We’re so close to being done with the puzzle.” Heath took a large bite of his burger, ketchup smearing across his upper lip.
“I hope it’s getting close to the end.” Lacole gulped some water, then used her napkin to dab Heath’s face. “You got something there.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, go back to the sudoku if you want.” Kelly waved them off. “Let’s win this thing!”
Heath and Lacole dove back in.
“Oh! The crossword puzzle the librarian gave us. Minnie did say to do all available puzzles.” Dahlia leaned sideways to snatch her satchel from the back of her chair, nudging his arm with her shoulder. The bit of contact warmed him. She might have felt something, too, because she straightened before she had the puzzle fully out.
“So you can use your brain,” Kelly said to take his mind off the inadvertent touch.
She blinked before laughing. “I’ll go through and do the across ones, and then you can do the down ones, and then we can tackle the unknowns together.”
“Sounds very methodical.”
“Unless you’d rather do it another way?” She held out her pencil, which he waved off.
Which meant he got to watch her unobserved. The way her nose scrunched when she was thinking. The way her eyebrows drew down, a little crease appearing between them when something didn’t sit right. The way she smiled, her face lit up like a sunrise, when she found the right answer.
“Okay. I finished my half. Now it’s your turn.”
She twisted the paper toward him, and he quickly scanned all she’d done. “Stagnant water cover? How did you know it was pond scum? I would have guessed mosquitoes or something.”
“If I didn’t know that, I’d be covered with bites and motile larvae would be sucked into my pores.” She fiddled with her straw, but her lips twitched. “My job doesn’t involve moving water.
“Nerd,” Kelly teased. Usually he didn’t like it when it was obvious someone was smarter than him, but he found he didn’t mind with Dahlia. He also knew it was his problem, anyway. Not hers.
She laughed out loud and raised her glass in a toast.
“Heh, and look,” Kelly said. “Sudoku was one of the answers.”
“I thought at first that I had the wrong answer. It’s almost like there’s a hidden message in the crossword. But it felt too perfect, you know?”
“A puzzle within a puzzle.” He fiddled with the pencil. “Lagniappe. Five letters. Second letter O. It sounds like it should involve bagpipes, but I can’t make that fit.”
“Bogpi.”
Smart and quick witted. “Perfect. Oh, I know the next one. Grace or green.” Kelly handed the paper back.
Dahlia studied the clue. “Something new? I mean, someone green is new at something, right? But how does grace fit in there?”
“It’s a pretty colorful clue.”
“Grace colored? That doesn’t make sense.”
