I giggled. “It’s fine, Jared. I can separate the broccoli from my food.”
“I just want tonight to be perfect…I’m forgetting things,” he said, glowering at the broccoli on the rim of my plate as if it had insulted him.
That one phrase caught my attention. “Why does it have to be perfect?”
Jared shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sighed with relief when the waitress came to refill our water glasses.
“Where was I?” he asked after the waitress left.
I blotted my lips with a napkin. “We’re moving too fast?”
“No…I mean yes, that’s where I was at, but no, I don’t think we’re moving too fast,” he paused for a moment and then looked warily at me. “You don’t think we are, do you?”
I giggled and shook my head. “No.” My eyebrows moved in as I watched him get increasingly nervous. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. I’m perfect. You okay?”
“Yeah…you’re kinda freaking me out, though,” I turned my head to the side slightly as I eyed him with suspicion.
Jared closed his eyes and then took a deep, relaxing breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little keyed up.”
“Relax. It’s just dinner,” I said, reaching across the table to his hand.
“Huh…yeah,” Jared said, laughing once at my suggestion, and then looking down at his plate.
“I was thinking St. Lucia for our vacation. They have air conditioners, there,” I smiled.
“I’ll make the calls tomorrow,” he said, distracted.
I pondered that for a moment and then narrowed my eyes. “My mother must pay you well.”
“Very well,” he nodded.
I rolled another piece of broccoli to the side of my plate. “Well, technically, I pay you well.”
“What?” Jared said, freezing in the middle of a bite.
I shrugged. “Well, when Jack died—his estate, his assets, everything…it’s mine.”
“What? I thought your mother….” Jared shook his head, taken off-guard.
“Oh, she can live there, she can deal with the bills and the taxes and the rest of it until I graduate. I can’t deal with it all right now.”
“So…you pay me?” Jared asked, grimacing. He didn’t seem happy at the idea.
“Why? Do you want a raise?” I smiled.
Jared laughed. “As much as I love my job, maybe I should be paying you.” I smiled at his words, and he worked to relax his expression. “So, it’s been a month since you moved in. Are you comfortable? Does it feel like home, yet?”
I sighed, looking into his breathtaking blue-grey eyes. “It felt like home before I moved in. You’re my home, Jared.”
He beamed at my words and reached down into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Nina, there’s something I….”
The waitress approached the table and Jared slumped against his chair, looking slightly disappointed. She took our plates and left us alone with the dessert menu.
“Angel Food cake is on the menu,” he smiled.
“I’m definitely going to have a slice of that.”
I watched Jared scroll over the list of pies, cakes and ice cream. While he searched, I noticed a small, glowing red dot appear over his shoulder and then slowly make its way across the table. I lowered my menu as I watched it hit the edge of the table, and then travel up the bodice of my dress, settling over my heart.
“Huh,” I said in a higher, bewildered pitch.
“What, sweetheart?” Jared asked, still looking over the menu.
“There must be someone else in here. They’re playing with one of those laser-pointer thingies,” I said, still watching it quiver on my chest.
My body jerked, and I felt the world spin in slow motion. The sounds of war impeded the air around me and I struggled to gain my bearings. Glass crashed to the floor, and high-pitched buzzing noises accompanied the staccato of gunfire. My arms and legs felt constricted and heavy, but at the same time weightless; flying through the air, higher and higher. I closed my eyes and tried to sift through the confusion.
Jared’s voice called to me from far away, and as his voice grew closer, so did the buzzing and tapping noises.
“Nina!” Jared yelled.
Sitting on the ground with my back to the inside of the waiter’s station, time sped up and the noises blurred together. Jared reached above me, and I heard a ripping noise. With one hand he placed a large board behind my back, leaning me against it. He ducked once and called my name again.
“Nina!”
My mind abruptly caught up with the present. Jared had reached across the table the second he’d noticed the red dot, and we flew together under a slew of gunfire to the middle of the room. He quickly righted me and ripped the marble countertop off above us, placing it behind me as a shield.