Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“That’s poetic,” Sienna muttered. “Unnecessarily dramatic, but poetic.”
I laughed. “We weren’t a great match. Honestly, I think she fell in love with the idea of me before she met the real version.”
“Is that why you didn’t date after?” she asked softly. “Because you didn’t want to disappoint someone again?”
I blinked. “Maybe. Or maybe I just made myself too busy to notice.”
She considered that, then lifted her brows. “So what changed?”
“You changed it,” I said before I could think better of it.
Her breath caught, shoulders going very still. “Me?”
“You,” I repeated. “You show up at the gear shed with your bright scarves and your ten-mile-an-hour energy. You argue with a zebra. You fall into lakes. You say the wrong thing twenty times and somehow end up saying exactly the right thing. You make me laugh in ways I haven’t in years.”
A flush bloomed across her cheeks. “You laugh because I panic.”
“I laugh because you’re honest,” I corrected. “And because you don’t hide who you are.”
“That’s not true,” she said softly. “I hide all the time.”
“Then maybe you hide in bright colors,” I said, “but I still see you.”
She held my gaze, vulnerability flickering behind her eyes like a candle caught in a breath of wind.
Before either of us said something too raw, the server arrived with our dinner, perfectly timed, unintentionally rescuing us both from emotional combustion.
“Here we are,” she chirped. “One mac and cheese and one mushroom risotto.”
We murmured thanks, and as soon as the server left, Sienna stabbed a mushroom dramatically.
“Okay,” she said. “Enough heavy. We need banter.”
“Is that officially medically prescribed?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Side effects may include charm, flirtation, and a sense of impending doom.”
“That last one feels targeted.”
“It absolutely was.”
I took a bite of risotto and raised an eyebrow. “So what kind of banter were you looking for?”
“Something fun,” she said. “Something light. Something that distracts me from the fact that your emotional vulnerability makes me want to throw my fork into the lake.”
“That’s… troubling.”
“It’s romantic,” she corrected. “In a damaged-sparrow kind of way.”
I laughed. “Is that what I am? A damaged sparrow?”
“No, that was me,” she said firmly. “You’re tall, broody, attractive, emotionally complicated. Classic hermit behavior.”
“What kind of bird am I then?”
She grinned. “Either a Blue-Footed Booby or a Kookaburra.”
“You just wanted to say booby.”
She shrugged and grinned.
“That tracks.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why does that track?”
“You vibrate at a frequency most mammals can’t hear, and you panic if left alone with your feelings for more than six seconds. Yet, you’re playful but feel the need to hide it.”
Her mouth fell open. “How dare you be observant?”
“You asked.”
She stabbed another mushroom. “You’re supposed to say I’m graceful and ethereal.”
“You fell into a lake two weeks ago.”
She pointed her fork at me. “I was lured. By water.”
“You were not lured.”
“It was siren water!”
I shook my head, smiling harder than I should. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Thank you,” she said primly, taking a sip of her drink. “I try.”
Dinner stretched into something warm and steady, each exchange building on the last, with teasing intensifying and sparks getting hotter.
I felt myself leaning toward her without meaning to, drawn in by the quickness of her wit and the softness she didn’t realize she showed when she wasn’t guarding herself.
She reached for the salt just as I moved my hand, and her fingers brushed mine, light as a match strike.
She froze.
I froze.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the soft press of her fingertips against my skin.
Sienna pulled her hand back slowly, like the contact had shocked her.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be.”
The words left my mouth lower than I intended.
Our server came back with the bill, and I reached for it. She protested. I ignored her protests. She accused me of chivalry. I said I couldn’t help it. She said chivalry was suspicious. I told her she was suspicious.
God, I loved her laugh. Too much already.
As we stepped onto the porch afterward, the night air settled around us, carrying the scent of lake water and pine.
The string lights above cast soft gold across her hair.
She wrapped her scarf a little tighter and looked up at me with a hesitant smile, like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to run forward or backward.
I offered my hand.
She looked at it for a moment, one beat and another, before sliding her fingers into mine.
Something in my chest loosened.
We walked toward the truck in silence, but it wasn’t the uneasy kind. It was the kind that hummed with everything unsaid, everything almost said, everything waiting.
When we reached her door, she hesitated, still holding my hand, thumb brushing lightly along the ridge of my knuckle.
“So,” she said, voice low, “this was… something.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It was.”
She looked up at me, eyes bright and uncertain. “Carson, I’m trying. I’m really trying not to run.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
The corner of her mouth lifted. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“That’s rude,” she whispered.
“It’s honest.”
She swallowed, breath catching faintly, then released my hand slowly, fingers trailing until the very last second.