Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
And it’s safe to say, that felt nice too.
I’d never strolled, connected to a man (or anyone) with no real purpose (except the important mission to get ice cream). No place to go. Just being together, spending time, chatting.
Touching.
We hit the ice cream place. He took his cone, and I took my sundae to a bench on the square. There we sat eating, and while we did, and even after, Dair made up stories about people that passed by that had me bending double from laughing so hard.
It was a toss-up, the walking close together vs. the laughing that hard as to which felt nicer, so in the end, I decided they were a tie.
What wasn’t a toss-up was that, regardless of how it began, by far, my date with Dair was the best I’d had in my life. Bar none.
In fact, not a single one even came close.
And I didn’t think I’d ever laughed that hard.
Ever.
And this was my decision about the date before we made out on my side in the open door of the car. And although it wasn’t as off the hook and all-consuming as when we were going at each other in the kitchen, it was still fabulous.
One could say (and I so did), the man could kiss.
More fabulous, I knew he wanted to kiss me, I wanted him to kiss me (badly—enough couldn’t be said about our kitchen kiss), and he found a time to give that to the both of us.
But he didn’t neck with me in his car outside a house my father and his mother were in, or inside for that matter.
We were grown adults, but I still thought this was him being sweet to me, and respectful of Dad, also his mum.
Again, I liked that.
A whole lot.
Nevertheless, when we got home, we found, even if it wasn’t all that late, everyone was in bed, and we headed that way too.
It sucked to say goodbye to him in the hall.
I might have sent a yearning glance his way before I walked through my bedroom door.
Actually, I was sure I did, considering the arrogant smile on his face when he saw it since he was standing outside his door waiting for me to go in mine.
Though, his arrogance was good. It wiped the yearning out of my mind and swept the vexation right in.
After we all went to brunch in town the next morning, Davi and Kenna took the rental car to go explore, Dad took his car to go home, and Dair slid behind the driver’s seat in mine because he decided we were spending our day together in Sedona.
I loved Sedona, even if it was more than an hour drive away, so I was all in.
However, as it seemed was us, during our day together, we shared cross words five times.
This started about two minutes after we were underway.
It began with Dair stating, “Ye barely have any petrol, lassie.”
“Okay. So let’s stop by a gas station.”
“Ye should never be this close to empty,” he decreed, his tone weighty.
It was the weight in his tone that made me turn to him and ask, “Why?”
“It’s dangerous. Ye should always keep it upward of half a tank because ye never know what’s going to happen.”
“Well, should I ever have the urge to rob a bank whereupon I find myself in a car chase with the police, I’ll remember your words when I run out of gas halfway to I-17.”
Now his tone was impatient. “What I mean is, there’s long stretches in this country with a good deal of nothing. Or ye could get busy and forget. And then you’d be stranded.”
“I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you I don’t often motor around in desolate rural areas and my car doesn’t let me forget, Dair. A warning comes on that tells me precisely how many miles I have left before I have to gas up.”
“Ye see what I’m saying, though. Aye?”
“Your accent is thick, but I’m getting used to it, so I do understand you. I just don’t agree with you.”
He made a growly noise at that point, which was so scrumptious, it made the entire mildly annoying conversation totally worthwhile.
Our next exchange of words happened about two minutes later, at the gas pump.
When he stopped, he got out.
So did I, with my purse.
He scowled at me like getting out of the car was akin to me threatening world peace.
“I’m pumping,” he stated.
I wasn’t going to argue that. I hated pumping gas.
“I’m paying.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“You’re not.”
“It’s my car.”
To that, he shoved his credit card into the slot.
“Dair!” I snapped.
“Get in the car, Blake.”
“You’re impossible.”
He grinned and pulled out his card. “You still like me, though.”
I hmphed my way into the car.
We then exchanged words about thirty minutes later, when he went off the beaten path.