Chapter 4
FOUR
KARL
She’s laughing.
I have no idea what to do, but at least she’s laughing. It’s a good laugh too. Melodic and forceful, even if it seems a bit underused. Making her laugh more is going straight to the top of my to-do list.
I jolt when her hand lands on my arm, and she looks up at me, her bright blue eyes wet with tears.
“That’s both the best and the worst line I’ve ever heard.” She barely gets it out before she’s lost in another fit of giggles, her hand dropping from my arm, leaving me missing her touch instantly.
“It would probably work better if the person knew my name,” I ponder aloud.
She nods, trying to collect herself. “Yes, that would be helpful. It’s also very forward.”
I shrug. “I’ve always been forward when it comes to things I want.”
That does it. She’s not laughing anymore. In fact, she looks terrified, and I feel all the blood in my body turn to ice.
“Want?” Her eyes narrow, and her head tips the tiniest bit to the left.
“Want to get to know you better,” I amend. “Not possess or own, or have you.”
Her expression softens, and my circulation begins to return to normal.
“Sorry about your dinner.” Her gaze drops to my chest, where evidence of what I was about to eat now rests. “I should replace it for you.”
“Oh, nah,” I wave off her offer. “You don’t have to do that. I’m pretty sure it was my fault.”
“What if me replacing your dinner means getting some for myself too?”
Wait a minute. “Are you asking me out to dinner?”
“Here I thought that was very obvious,” she scoffs. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Communication is clearly not our thing.”
“I’m a big believer in practicing,” I reason quickly.
I can’t let her walk away. I got lucky twice today.
I can’t count on that happening a third time.
Also, if we’re eating, we don’t need to be talking.
We can eat, and I can just look at her. And yet I want to talk to her.
I want to start and never stop. Hell, she could recite the alphabet on repeat, and I doubt I’d get sick of it.
I lean in, somehow resisting the urge to take her face in my hands. “Practice with me, countess?”
“Don’t call me that,” she protests, but the little smirk she’s wearing makes me think she’s starting to appreciate my use of royal nicknames.
Small problem, though. I’m running out of new ones to use.
“What do you want me to call you then?”
She levels me with a look, and for a beat I think she’s not going to tell me.
“You may call me baroness,” she announces, tipping her head demurely.
My mouth falls open in shock. “Seriously?”
She laughs again, and it’s the most useful I’ve felt all day.
“Nancy, no fancy titles, just Nancy.”
Nancy. That’s the fanciest title I’ve ever heard.
“So, Nancy,” I drawl, smiling when her expression brightens at the sound of her name. “Should we go get dinner?”
“Yes, although, maybe we should change first?” she suggests after glancing down at her shirt.
“Probably not a terrible idea. I’ve pro—” I start.
As she says, “I’ll just go—sorry, what?”
“I was just saying I’ve probably got a shirt that would fit you in the camper. Well, I know I do. It would just be big.”
“I have a way better idea.”
I’m nodding in agreement before she has even told me; down for whatever she has in mind. Yes, I think. I will do whatever you want if it means I get even a second longer with you.
“How about we take turns and get each other a new shirt from one of those places out there? You know, with the ridiculous puns.”
“Let's definitely do that. I’ll go first. What size?” I ask, already turning to leave.
“Medium, I like a bit of room.” She smiles and shimmies in the cutest way.
I’m so screwed.
The first booth I check out is too cutesy. I don’t want to get something raunchy, but I do want to make Nancy look twice.
There's a shirt with a dog, the face of a clock seemingly embedded in its fur. A watchdog—cute pun, disturbing visual.
Beans with sunglasses, cool beans. Peas flashing peace signs with “Give peas a chance” written in a barely legible font.
Then I see the perfect one. Cows dressed as various fairy tale characters. Dairy Tales in an unlicensed Disney font scrawled below them.
“Your turn,” I tell Nancy when I get back, slipping the shirt behind my back right as she turns to face me.
“That was fast,” she says, sounding impressed.
“I’m hungry, and the smell of my shirt just made me hungrier.”
“Fair enough. I’ll try and match your speed,” she calls over her shoulder, heading toward the market.
My eyes stay on her until she rounds the corner, appreciating the view more than I should.
She’s back faster than me, holding the shirt behind her back, smiling like she’s just won the Stanley Cup.
“On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”
We both whip the shirts out from behind our backs and hand them over.
I don’t look at mine right away, opting to see her reaction first. She’s definitely trying not to laugh, lips rolled together, cheeks puffed. It’s a valiant effort, but she loses when a barely there snort slips out.
“This is good,” she exclaims, laughter coloring her words as she peers up at me. “Now you.”
I’d rather keep looking at her. I honestly don’t care what’s on the shirt. It could be covered in actual bees, and I’ll put it on. But I can’t say that, so I look down. There’s no trying to hold back the bark of laughter that comes out of me. There’s a pig doing karate on mine.
“Karate chop?” I ask.
“You're very smart, Karl. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“My mom says it every Tuesday.”
A slow smile spreads across perfectly pink lips. “I bet.” She looks around. “So… I’m going to run to the washroom and change, and I guess I’ll meet you back here.”
“Promise?”
“Do you think this was all a ploy to exchange shirts?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
She steps into my space, so close that if I tipped my head forward, my lips would land on the top of her head. It’s tempting.
“Karl,” she whispers, and lord help me, the way she looks up at me through her lashes has me ready to drop to my knees to worship her.
I swallow and hold fast. “Nancy.”
“I promise I’ll come back. I bet I can get back here faster than you.”
“Is that a challenge, dearest?” I see her fighting the smile at the old-fashioned term of endearment and file it away.
“Yep,” she says, and then she’s off, speed-walking toward the women’s washroom on the other side of the hall.
“I’m guessing that’s my dinner,” Matt asks, looking from my shirt to my empty hands.
“Yeah, change of plans.” I clean my hands and face before pulling the new t-shirt out of where it’s hanging from my back pocket. “I’ve got a date, so you’ll have to get your own food.”
He sits up so quickly that his chair nearly topples forward. “With who?”
“Nancy,” I say matter-of-factly as I rip my soiled shirt off and throw it onto my chair.
“What the fuck is that?” Matt asks, staring at my pork chop shirt.
“This is a t-shirt, Matty.”
“Why would you wear that on a date?”
“Because”—I grin, running my hands down the front of the shirt—“the woman I’m going to marry gave it to me.”