Page 15 of Fight for Me
And she didn’t care what he would say.
“Sure, that sounds like fun!” she answered, ignoring the warning voice that told her it was a bad idea. She was a grown woman, after all. She could handle it.
Jake sat acrossfrom Lexie outside the local Dairy Queen and did his best not to laugh as she battled a hole near the bottom of her waffle cone.
“Plug it with your finger,” he said, pointing to the gap where her strawberry ice cream was escaping.
“I can’t, it keeps breaking!” she said with dismay as the cone cracked farther up the side. “I’m heading for a full containment breach!”
Jake laughed, scraping the last of his hot fudge sundae from the bottom of his paper cup.
“Here, see if this helps,” he said, handing the cup to her.
Lexie unceremoniously dumped her dripping concoction into his empty container, shaking a few drops of ice cream from her sticky hands.
“This makes me think about animals that adapt so they can’t be eaten. You know, like porcupines and poison dart frogs,” she said, cleaning up with a pile of napkins he’d grabbed at the pickup window.
“How exactly did you get from ice cream cones to poison dart frogs?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“You know, the way they make themselves inedible. This cone is fighting back.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m starting to think your mind works in strange and mysterious ways.”
“Oh, you have no idea. Once, I had a dream that was part Harry Potter, part Wizard of Oz, and it was incredible.”
“I’d watch that movie. Did it have both the Wicked Witch of the WestandVoldemort?” he asked, raising his drink to his lips.
“Yep, married with kids, actually. And let me tell you, green-skinned, no-nose babies are not attractive.”
Jake pitched forward, barely containing the Dr. Pepper that threatened to spray across the table and make her messy situation even worse. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowed.
“Sorry. I probably should have waited until you weren’t mid-sip,” Lexie said, grinning.
Jake laughed, feeling his cheeks stretch until they hurt. This was the best first date he’d ever had. But was it actually a date? She’d driven herself and refused to let him pay, so maybe not. But it was certainly date-adjacent.
It wasn’tnota date, at least. And he was willing to work with that.
“There’s probably some telepathic link straight to Copper Hill that’s going to tell my mother I spit on a woman, and she’ll be here in less than twenty minutes to beat me with a wooden spoon,” he said.
It was Lexie’s turn to laugh, and Jake loved the way her whole face changed. If she’d been a distraction on the sidelines, it was nothing compared to sitting across from her now.
“What’s your mother like?” she asked, taking a sip of her remaining ice cream as if it were a milkshake.
“Well, she’s pretty much your typical Tennessee housewife. She used to be a kindergarten teacher, but then when I came along, she stopped working to stay home and keep me out of trouble. She makes the best lasagna in the world and likes to grow tulips in these huge flower beds in the front yard. She saysshe wants the place to look like those fields in Amsterdam,” he said, lacing his fingers behind his head.
Lexie’s eyes followed the movement, catching somewhere near his shoulders before jumping back to her dessert. Jake smothered a triumphant smile as a blush rose in her cheeks.
Definitelydate-adjacent.
“So, you’re an only child?” she asked, keeping her attention on her cup.
“No, I have a younger sister, Ashlyn; she’s a sophomore at CVSU. I also grew up within ten miles of my nine first cousins, so the house was always full.”
“Ninecousins?” Lexie asked. “Wow.”
“A lot more if you count second cousins, too. There are currently four generations of Tanners in Mason County,” he said proudly. “My grandfather is the oldest of Grandpa Jacob and Grandma Ruby’s four boys. Then he had four kids himself, including my dad, so there are a lot of us.”
“I grew up in a big house all by myself,” Lexie said wistfully. “I can’t imagine having siblings or cousins running around all the time. It must have been fabulous to always have someone to play with.”
