Page 14 of The Stargazers of Copper County
The early evening sun painted its way across the room as it fell over the lake outside. I could have spent hours talking to him like this, and maybe I did. But eventually, our hunger urged us into the kitchen, where I pulled out the food I’d prepped earlier.
“What else are you into?” I asked, not wanting to monopolize the conversation with my own interests, even though I could tell by now he earnestly shared them.
He grinned at me from the stool at the island, where I’d put him to work opening a bottle of wine. “Doodling, obviously.”
I let out a huff of laughter at the idea of referring to his talent as “doodling.” After handing him two empty wineglasses to fill, I leaned over and tilted his chin up with a finger so he would meetmy eyes. “Theo. I told you before, but I need you to feel this. Your doodling is fucking gorgeous.”
His cheeks flushed. I couldn’t resist leaning in and pressing a kiss to each one before tasting his lips again. “Hold that thought while I put this chicken on the grill.”
When we finally sat down to eat, we were both too hungry to do much talking other than give and receive a compliment on the food. As I was taking my last bite, he asked me where I’d gotten the tomatoes on the chicken. “Please say the O’Leary Farmer’s Market because if you got your tomatoes from anyone else, we’re going to have to have an awkward conversation about O’Leary loyalty.”
I glanced at him. “I’m not an O’Learian, though. I’m a… what do you locals call it? Copper-plated? Not Copper all the way through but only on the surface?”
Theo burst out laughing. “Oh my God. I can’t believe you’ve heard about that.” His face was pink again, which made me want to spend the rest of my life making him blush. “You know what they say about people who discover the local lingo?”
“No.” I grinned. “What do they say?”
“That if you’ve learned it, you must be one of us for real.” He bounced his eyebrows and pointed his fork at me. “A Coppertian, in your case.”
“A Coppertian?” I laughed, delighted. “Is that a real thing?”
“It is,” he agreed. “The area around the lake has been known as Copper County since loooong before Copper County became its own town, so… Coppertians. As in, ‘Do you live with us fancy folk in the pricey, overdeveloped part of Piermonte, Janelle,dahhhling? Or over in the soulless subdivision with the McMansions? No? Ohhhh, you must live out inCopperCounty.’” He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a comic expression of surprise. “‘You’re aCoppertian.’”
I snickered into my wine. “Janelle needs better friends.”
“Right?” Theo laughed, too. “Probably for the best that you divided into two different towns a while back ’cause as far as I’m concerned, you guys got the better end of the deal.” He tilted his wine glass in the direction of the lake, where the sky was painted in the soft pinks and oranges of twilight and a few puffy clouds cast gentle reflections on the calm water. “Beautiful views, friendly people, close to all the shops in O’Leary. You’re not missing anything. You know?”
“I can’t argue with that. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. The view tonightispretty spectacular.” In fact, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. I shot him a wink. “And I can vouch for the locals beingextremelyfriendly.”
“Locals,” Theo repeated. His smile dimmed. “Plural. Have you been…friendlywith a lot of us?”
“What?” I suddenly realized how my words had sounded. How he’d interpreted them. “Oh! No.No.I, ah… I only have experience with one friendly local.” I frowned. “I mean… You know what I mean.”
“Heh. Yeah.” He tried smiling, but it looked forced.
I reached out and covered his hand with mine. “Would it bother you if I had?”
Theo pressed his lips together and inhaled through his nose. “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I think it would. There. Now you know I’m exactly as immature as you imagined.”
I shoved his chair back and yanked him onto my lap, nearly tossing us both on the floor. He cried out and clutched at me before letting out a relieved laugh when we didn’t fall.
“Mm… is it immature to not want to hear about your date sleeping with someone else?” I wondered out loud. “If so, I’m incredibly immature.”
He slipped his arms around my neck and smiled at me. “Really? Tell me more about that, then.”
CHAPTER TEN
THEO
I still felt overexposedfrom revealing to Bennett just how much I was into him. I found myself torn between wanting to hold back and wanting to jump in with both feet.
Bennett’s hand moved up and down my back while the other held my hip to keep me from moving off his lap. “First, tell me about you. Have you been dating anyone recently? Or… more than dating?”
The way his gaze stayed on me as if trying to read my face—a little anxious, a little hopeful—helped me make the decision. No holding back.
I ran my hand up his neck into the back of his hair so I could toy with it and shook my head. “I have a friend. Rae. They’ve been my bestie for years. And we never messed around or anything—I don’t think they were ever attracted to me that way—but we were… comfortable. They saw me in a way that not a lot of people in O’Leary do. Took me seriously, you know? So for a while there, I sort of thought we’d end up together.”
“Really.” He frowned. “Why didn’t you?”
