Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
“ Oh! I am delighted with this book. I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.”
~Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
“ W e need to get this out of our system here, because there will be none of this in front of my aunt and uncle,” Elle warned with a cheeky tone in between more Clayton kisses after they’d pulled into the parking lot of the Sea Serpent for brunch.
“I waited this long to kiss you; I can make it two hours.” He rested his forehead against hers.
“Ok, let’s go,” she said, backing away from him, turning for the door handle.
But Clayton had other thoughts, pulling her back into his arms he thoroughly kissed her.
Her brain was still reeling as he said, “Ok, now we can go.”
They were five minutes late. Elle jogged inside while Clayton waited in the parked truck to come in a few minutes after. This was all too new to expose to the flurry of questions, raised eyebrows, and searching glances of her family. In the end, keeping their status quiet gave them time to figure it out.
“Interesting, you’re both late,”Tobey observed, elbowing his husband.
Damn his cop spidey sense.
“Yeah.” Jerome quirked an accusing brow. “Come to think of it, you both disappeared early from the wedding.”
“I was sick,” Elle blurted.
“Oh, Lady Elle, no.” The sweet natured Jerome was easily distracted from sussing what was happening between Clayton and Elle.
“How are you feeling?” Tobey narrowed his eyes, less convinced.
“Much better. I just overindulged on that mac and cheese. Clayton ran into me when I said I wasn’t feeling well and offered to drive me back, since I had ridden with your mom,” she explained, then bit her tongue to keep from spewing unnecessary details.
“Mmhmm.” Tobey’s tone said he wasn’t convinced.
“Oh man, thanks for taking care of my cousin-in-law.” An appreciative Jerome slapped Clayton’s back.
“Anytime,” Clayton said with a mischievous glance her way.
Heat flushed her cheeks with the knowledge of where his mind had gone about how he took care of her.
The brunch was less formal than the wedding. Baskets of fresh pastries, pitchers of mimosas, fruit, meat, and cheese platters, tea pots, and coffee carafes sat at each table. Elle sat with Meghan and her wife Karla.
Between stolen glances with Clayton seated across the room, Elle learned that Jerome and Meghan had been in the same class at Cornell, a few years behind Clayton. After meeting Clayton during a clinical rotation where he worked in Ithaca, they’d developed a friendship. When Clayton invited them to become his partners and expand the clinic, they’d both jumped right in.
After brunch, and a good hour of chatting and schmoozing, Clayton appeared next to Elle, enveloping her senses in a citrus-scented haze. Heat invaded her cheeks and led to Jerome asking if she was okay.
“Too much tea,” she insisted and patted her flushed cheeks.
Jerome tilted his head to one side. “I didn’t know tea could do that.”
“It doesn’t,” Tobey mumbled, his narrowed gaze locked on Elle.
“You drink coffee. I drink tea. Therefore, I am the expert.” She flicked his nose.
Pete strolled over, a small, reusable Buffalo Bills grocery bag in his hand. “We should all get going. They need to get ready to reopen to the public in an hour.”
“Thanks, Dad Number Two?—”
Pete smiled at the term of endearment from his new son-in-law.
“—We still need to pack before tonight’s flight.”
“You haven’t packed?” Elle pasted her hands over her heart.
“Easy, Elle, do you need your smelling salts?” Pete teased.
Her heart squeezed with the sound of her preferred name. Leave it to Janet to make sure that in a little under twenty-four hours the entire family knew to call her Elle.
“I’m sure someone here will catch her if she faints,” Tobey snarked, his blue eyes dropped on Clayton.
“I think any of us would catch her if she fell.” Pete nudged his son.
All four men nodded in unison.
“And she’d catch us if we fell,”he added.
A sense of belonging ensconced Elle eliciting a large smile. These men. They were good and they were hers.
Pete handed her the reusable grocery bag. “Just a few slices of wedding cake, since you had left before the cake was cut.”
Wrapping her arms around his waist, she gave a thankful squeeze. She knew he probably suspected why she’d left early. The tightrope he had to walk between his sister and his niece was, no doubt, difficult.
“That was the longest two hours of my life,” Clayton almost whined, pulling her into a small space between the restaurant’s brick wall and a tall hedge when she stepped outside. Pressing her against the wall with his body, he placed impatient kisses.
She giggled…actually giggled, but she gave zero fucks.
“I’m telling you Jerome…” Tobey’s voice came from the other side of the hedge.
Elle pushed on Clayton’s chest, and he led her further down the hedgerow, cloaking them in its leafy secrecy.
“…something is going on there,” Tobey continued.
“Would that be so bad?” Jerome replied.
“He’s great. She’s amazing. I just…” Tobey stopped speaking,
Elle stretched her neck to try to hear better.
“You worry too much. They’re adults. Both sexy, single adults,”Jerome teased in a sultry voice.
Tobey grumbled something Elle couldn’t make out as car doors slammed and an engine charged to life.
After a few minutes, they checked that the coast was clear and ran to Clayton’s truck to drive to Buffalo for their chair buying date. Once there, they bought two chairs. Correction. Elle bought one for the Little Red Barn, and Clayton got one for the farmhouse. Clayton, who had a Post-It note fetish, bought Elle a packet of purple ones.
Clayton suggested hitting the Anchor Bar for dinner. As she sat across from him, a basket of wings between them, she wasn’t entirely sure if this was a date. To Elle it felt like a date, and it was the best date she had ever had. The flow of the conversation and the fun facts of life he shared helped her to know more and more about this man.
“So, is this our first date?” She bit into a drumstick.
“Well, yes and no. No, because in many ways I feel like I’ve been dating you since our first run. Yes, I never said they were dates aloud ‘til I asked you to join me today. I may not be doing this dating thing right.”
“You’re doing it right,” she said, trying to ignore the little flutter in her chest.
“For the record, so are you.”
“I’m very unpracticed.”
“I know you said there weren’t any gentlemen callers currently…”
She snorted.
He continued, undeterred “…but have you had…a…any…oh, boy…serious relationships?” he asked, forehead wrinkled.
“After it… uh, Jamie happened, I didn’t date for a long time. Not until my first year at Sloan-Whitney. Javi was a surgical resident I had a very brief thing with. Not serious. He was sweet, but I wasn’t ready. Other than him, nobody beyond a few dates.”
“I haven’t dated anyone since Marianne.”
“Did you date before her?”
“A few girls. I dated and had one girlfriend in undergrad but nothing too serious. I’m not a big serial dater.” Barbecue sauce coated his fingers as he bit into a wing.
Elle squashed an urge to lick his fingers clean. “Yeah, I don’t remember you ever dating in high school.”
“There was only one girl I wanted to date in high school, and I missed my chance.”His intense gaze pinned her in place.
Those eyes had such a power over her. Was it possible that what she’d seen as judgement in his eyes in high school was not for her but for himself? For the things he couldn’t say when he was in her presence? How had her vision been so impaired to not see him before now? She assumed boys like him wouldn’t want girls like her, when he’d wanted her all along but had been too afraid that she wouldn’t want him in return.
“We didn’t miss our chance. It was just waiting for us to get here. We’re here now,” she murmured, leaning across the table to press her lips against his mouth, coated with the barbecue sauce’s tangy sweetness.
A large grin bloomed across his face.
“Clayton, can I take a picture of you?”
“I’d rather take a picture with you,”he countered, wiping his hands.
“Ok.” She wiped her hands and opened the camera app on her phone and selected the selfie mode, as she started to crouch next to him, Clayton pulled her onto his lap.
Grabbing the phone with his left hand, he held her close with his right hand on her stomach, as their heads pressed together.
“Much better. At the count of three say, wings. One…two…three…wings!”
He snapped several selfies. Right before he snapped the last one, he turned his head and placed a small kiss to her cheek.
She couldn’t stop smiling as she reviewed the pics and sent the first selfie of her on his lap, heads close, and giant unabashed grins, to Viet and Willa with the message, My hot farmer , finally appeasing their demands.