Chapter 9 #3
I also press into my memory the way his blue eyes are the color of sky just after a storm and how his dark brown hair is slightly mussed from him running his hands through it.
Even with the smile lines around his eyes and the gray spreading out from his temples, Tank embodies a youthful energy that draws me in and, in a sense, wakes me up.
I know fifty-one isn’t old—despite how that number would have sounded when I was in my twenties or even early thirties—but Tank makes me feel younger.
Like there is a lot more life to be lived even than I thought.
Whatever exhaustion I felt when I got home after baking multiple tiny batches and carrying multiple loads up and down the stairs and across the street the last two days has vanished after time with Tank.
“I have to know: are you mansplaining Super Mario Bros to me after playing for an hour?” I ask.
“I think it’s been two hours,” he says. “And I’m an expert now.”
“Is that so?”
“Just look to see who has the most coins.”
“I’m more concerned about having the most lives, and between the two of us, I’m pretty sure it’s no contest.”
Tank studies me, and I’m suddenly self-conscious. At least, until he smiles, and then a jittery electric buzz zooms through me.
“Did you ever play sports?” he asks.
“Not really. I did swim team most summers and played a few years of volleyball. I wasn’t ever great, and I didn’t love it. Now, I usually walk every morning. Or, I did before I moved here.”
“Why did you stop?”
I shift my gaze away. The last topic I want to get into is the stress of opening the bakery and how it pretty much engulfed my life in ways I didn’t anticipate. “No time, I guess. And I used to walk with my friends back in Austin. It’s easier to keep up with something when there’s accountability.”
The Emilys and I met up three times a week to walk in the mornings, though it was as much about catching up as it was exercise. The two Emilys liked to argue about this, actually.
“Studies have shown that walking lowers your stress hormones and extends life expectancies. Walking with friends increases adherence,” Jacks told us once when Emily had been complaining about not wanting to get out of bed that morning.
“What’s adherence?” I remember asking.
“It means you’re more likely to stick to it,” Emily grumbled. “Which is logical, since when you have a taskmaster for a friend, she’s going to make you do it. Adherence isn’t a benefit.”
“Yes it is,” Jacks argued back. “Because the accountability is what gets you here, and then the walking is what helps with cognitive function, executive function, and even sleep.”
I wonder if my lack of walking lately has contributed to my poor sleep habits and higher stress levels. Or … that’s just life as a brick-and-mortar small business owner.
“Do you need someone to walk with?” Tank asks. “Because I’ll go. I’ve been too busy myself lately, and I think walking would do me good.”
“Isn’t walking a little”—I eye the muscles in his forearms, which are bunching even as he holds the controller—“basic for someone like you?”
“Someone like me?” he teases. “What does that mean?”
“You just look like you spend hours throwing tires around a gym and bench pressing cars or something. Not … walking.”
“I like all forms of exercise,” Tank says with a shrug, a smile still playing on his lips. “Walking is peaceful. Low impact. And I think I’d really enjoy it with the right company.”
The air shifts between us, and suddenly the teasing banter seems to have evaporated. I can’t think of a proper response, and I can’t look away from Tank.
It’s at this exact moment, my stomach lets loose an unholy groan. Probably because it is still a Monday, and Monday is on a mission every week to ruin your day.
“Can you pretend you didn’t hear that?” I ask.
I planned to eat dinner after I played a little bit, but then Tank came over and I forgot. I didn’t eat lunch either—no time. I think I had breakfast … if coffee and a few bites of a cupcake counts. But with the way my stomach sounds, it probably doesn’t.
“Are you hungry?” Tank asks. “Actually, I take that question back. You are hungry. Not that I heard anything. I didn’t. Nothing at all.”
I drop my controller and put my head in my hands.
Tank nudges my shoulder with his, but I can’t look up. “Would you like to eat?”
“Yes?”
His smile is slow. “You don’t seem sure.”
“Maybe because I’m unsure about the question. Or, rather, I’m sure that I want to eat, but I guess I’m not sure what you’re asking. Are you asking me because you’re gathering data and are curious about my current state of hunger? Or are you asking me if I’d like to eat with you?”
The audacity of me. I can only peek through my fingers at him after asking the kind of question I never would have asked a man years ago. My boldness only stops short of asking if it’s a date.
Tank’s slow smile widens, and I add it to the mental album I’m making. Good thing mental albums don’t ever run out of pages because it’s getting pretty full of Tank Graham smiles.
“Rose Roberts, if you’re hungry, would you like to go out to dinner with me? And,” he continues, just a little faster than the yes can leave my lips, “if you’d like to go out to dinner with me, would you like to consider it … a dinner date?”
“Yes.”