Page 45 of With You Here
Beautiful and lovely. Her cheeks burned. She’d told him her rules against dating. Why was he still pursuing her? She chewed the inside of her lip. Was she a game to him? Was he playing with her? The image of him broken up over flirting with her the first time in the restaurant flashed back. He couldn’t have faked that remorse. So then…this…was he serious?
He reached over and snatched the paper from her hands. Wrote something and handed it back.
If you have a panic attack, you’re going to give yourself away and everyone will know you’ve been naughty and passed notes in class. *winky face*
She closed her lips around the laugh that wanted to burst out but couldn’t quite hold back the smile. She glanced over at him, but his face held a stoic expression, almost serious as he remained laser-focused on what Mila was saying. What was he thinking? She wished she could crawl up into his brain and dissect his every thought and motivation.
He leaned over slightly and whispered out of the side of his mouth. “You’re blowing your cover.”
She straightened and turned to the front of the room. Mila motioned someone to come up with her. Amber recognized the man. She’d seen him around the center since the very first day. He was usually hunched over his desk at one of the cubicles, either typing furiously at his keyboard or shuffling through stacks of papers. People around her clapped their hands and she joined in with her own applause. He pointed the clicker at the projector and changed the slide. A PDF of a form slid onto the screen. She couldn’t read the German words, but she figured it was one of the standard forms the center helped people file with the government.
She looked back down at her lap. Seth’s note lay there. Never before had a single piece of paper intimidated her. Taken on a persona of its own. What should she write back? Or maybe she shouldn’t write back at all. She could let the exchange stop with her. That would be the courteous thing. For Mila, and now paperwork-filing-guy. Yes, that’s what she’d do. She’d be respectful and—
The note slid off her lap. Seth’s elbow bumped her as he jotted down more words.
Her chest clenched. What was he writing now? If it was along the same vein as before, she’d have to answer somehow. Witty? Serious? Encouraging? Deflective? Problem was, she felt like she’d come to a crossroads. Up until now, the path she’d been journeying had been fairly straight. It hadn’t veered off in any crazy directions. She hadn’t chased after little rabbit trails. But now she stood at a fork in the road. Her path no longer went in a nice straight line. Instead, the path split into two. Parallel to each other, but she’d still have to make a decision about which to travel. One seemed wider. Space for two people to traverse together. The other required a single-file hike. Besides God and her family, she’d never invited people along on her journey. There had never been room.
She held her body straight but studied Seth out of the corner of her eye. Should she make room for him? He wasn’t at all how she’d pictured her future husband. Not that she was saying she was going to marry him, but one of her rules was that she wouldn’t date a guy if shecouldn’tsee herself walking down the aisle toward him.
She’d always thought she’d end up with someone quiet. Studious. Maybe someone who wore glasses. A professor type. Seth wasn’t any of those things. He was an athlete with a big personality who had the eyes of the world trained on him. But he did have a good heart, and he did seek the better things in life and, logical or not, he seemed to be the true north that the compass of her heart pointed to.
He held the paper back toward her, folded differently this time so that the bottom layered up like an accordion. Her palms dampened when she gripped the edge of the note. He held on for a second, and she looked up, meeting his gaze. The dark rim around his pupils seemed charged, gold flecks sparking, nothing hidden or shuttered. The directness of his gaze washed through her with clarity. Had anyone ever been so open? There were no innuendoes she had to muddle through. No masks she had to remove in order to see the real person beneath. Even when the truth was difficult and laid bare, Seth had always chosen honesty with her.
He seemed to read something in her expression, because his features softened, and he let out a long breath. He gave her a lopsided grin, then stared pointedly at the paper in her hands.
I know you have rules against it, but I’d like to ask you to make an exception. Please, go on a date with me.
She read the words twice. Three times. A date for most would be no big deal. Most twenty-one-year-olds had been on many. Maybe even had a string of boyfriends in their wake. But a date for her was monumental.
Seth reached over and pressed down the first fold.
What if my sister came along as a chaperone?
A smile inched its way across her lips. She’d only met Kayla briefly, but she could imagine how the surly teen would love being a third wheel to her brother’s date. And a chaperone wasn’t necessary. Though her body seemed to respond to Seth without consulting her brain first, she wasn’t worried that anything would get out of control.
His fingers worked to unfold the next flap.
A group date with all the football kids? Pizza in the park?
A chuckle punched past her lips before her hand could hold it back. Heads swiveled toward her. She banged on her chest and coughed. “Sorry.Es tut mir Leid.” She held up a hand and wanted to slink under the table.
Mila caught her eye and raised a brow. She looked past Amber and seemed to be measuring up Seth. A knowing smirk graced her lips, and then she locked her gaze with Amber’s and gave a thumbs up sign.
Amber slumped in her seat but startled straight when a finger tapped her leg again. Seth had lowered the last fold.
Check yes or no
He offered her the pen.
She met his eyes, took both the pen and the paper and placed them on top of the table, and with a flourish, circledyesthree times.
Chapter Eighteen
“Do you know, when I took Mila on our first date, it was romantic. Intimate. A dinner by candlelight for two.” Ben shook his head with a dramatic flair, as if he couldn’t understand the world or the people in it. “Young people these days. You must always do things bigger and better—übertrefft.” He slid his gaze sideways. “This time it is the number of people to include on a date.”
Seth juggled the stacked boxes in his hands, the heat radiating from the pizzas inside causing his forearms to cook. “You could bow out and subtract one from that number.”
“And miss this?” He laughed. “Nie.Never.”
