Page 104 of Infatuated as They Come
She winced a tiny bit. “The country club?”
“You go there all the time, right? It’s your natural environment. We’ll go and have that dinner that I owe you. You can go to the salon and get your hair done and put on a pretty dress and I’ll put on a suit and it’ll be a nice, wonderful, not low budget night out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What was that last thing? Low budget? Is that why you’re taking me there? You know we don’t have to do this…”
But we did. We did, we did, we did. “I just wanna take you some place nice.”
“I mean, I was hoping we’d do something together. You know, alone. Just us,” she said, fingers fidgeting together. “But if you really want to go there…”
“Great. We’ll do it.”
“Great?”
“Yeah, great. It’s…” Fancy, classy, all that rich people shit. “It’s great. We’ll have dinner there.”
“Alright,” she said. “I guess I’ll go call them up and book the table.”
I watched her walk away, wishing I could just fast forward to tonight. I could see it in my head: me and her at that table surrounded by people who probably didn’t even want me in the building, but it didn’t matter to Holly. She’d look beautiful like she always did and her smile would be bright and her eyes would be twinkling and then we could pretend like nothing and no one was getting in the way.I was getting in the way. I knew I hadn’t been around lately and it had been killing me to spend so much time without her. My mind had been occupied with making her gift and trying to be sure that every last detail was right. When I had finished up with it at the studio I had left feeling confident that she’d like it—or maybe even love it—but after those words from her dad, doubt had been growing in my mind. I hadto give her something better and bigger than a handmade gift.
“I got us a table,” Holly said as she moved back into the room. “And a salon appointment for one. Are yousureyou want to go there? To the club?”
“Like I said, I owe you dinner, and this is the perfect place for us to go.”
Arms wrapping around herself, she gave me a little smile. “Okay. Well, I can’t wait to have dinner with you.”
The rest of the morning was spent in Holly’s backyard—if you could call it that, because the place was huge. She filled up mugs with hot chocolate and brought out a container with some cookies, the air not feeling as cold as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Then we moved over to the theater room, because of course they had one, and watched a couple Christmas movies. I was loving every second of it. I was loving how I got to have her close, how I got to see her smile and hear her laugh, how it was just us—but there was that split second of that unsettled feeling in my body. It was all so free, so cheap,so low budget.
The day passed by slowly into the afternoon, and soon I was laying my suit out for tonight.
“Which one says Christmas more?” Holly asked as she stepped into the bedroom, two red dresses in her hands. “This one or this one?”
“Uh…” Honestly, both of them looked the same and I knew she’d look gorgeous in either one, so I wasn’t even sure if it mattered. “You sure they’re different?”
“Yes.” She scoffed, holding up the one in her left hand. “I think I’ll go with this one.”
“Good choice.”
She tilted her head at me, placing her dresses carefully on the bed before sitting next to me. “Are you okay? You’ve been kinda quiet all day.”
“I’m just…” I steeled myself. I didn’t need to worry her with what I was feeling. “I’m fine. What time are you leaving for the salon?”
“In a few minutes. Mom’s gonna drive me down there. I’m gonna get ready there too, so is it okay if I meet you at the club at seven?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. That’s good. That’s perfect.”
There was a little frown on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re acting weird.”
“It’s the time difference.”
“It’s only an hour. If you’re feeling tired, we can just stay home,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. “We could watch movies all night or something like we did today. It’s been so long since we did anything like that. Wasn’t it nice?”
Honestly, that sounded a hell of a lot nicer than dinner at a country club, but I needed to give her more. Something different and better. “Dinner’s good. A night out, like I owe you.”
“I wish you’d stop with this ‘I owe you’ nonsense. You don’t owe me anything.”
