I threw my arms up. “So?”
He stilled, back to me, in the wardrobe still. What the hell was going through that pretty head of his?
“Logan?” I whispered.
Turning around slowly, he took a deep breath. “He’d want me to look out for you.”
Ah, this was about Jace.
“You do look out for me. I doubt Jace would expect you to pick out my outfits.”
“How much do you really know this Riley?”
“Rhys.”
“Whatever, begins with an R.”
“I’ve known him for about three and a half or four years, but I guess I don’t really know him much at all. That’s the point of dating though, to get to know each other. Not that you’d really know that, your idea of dating doesn’t involve much talking.”
“I’ll have you know they’re very vocal.”
Good thing I didn’t have lunch. “Lovely,” I muttered dryly.
Reaching back into the wardrobe, Logan pulled out an oversized, cream knitted jumper. “I like this.”
“I’d be too hot. My outfit is fine, Logan. Rhys isn’t an animal. I’ll be fine.”
“Can you at least not do that thing with your lips.”
“What thing with my lips?”
“Where you kind of purse them, just a tiny bit. You do it when you concentrate or really listen or are just million miles away.”
“Right.” Great, I was going to be self-conscious of that now.
“It’ll make him want to bite it.”
“My lip?”
“Yes. Don’t do it.”
Talking to Logan had never given me a headache before.
“Alright. No lip pursing that I don’t even know I do, got it. Is there anything else I should or should not do? Sir.”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “You shouldn’t have any physical contact with him. At all. In fact, why don’t I chaperone?”
“No, and no.”
“You’re planning physical contact?”
I sighed, exasperated. “No, I’m not but it’s likely at some point.”
The doorbell rang again.
“That’ll be Ryan,” he said.
“Rhys,” I corrected. He was doing it on bloody purpose now, the awkward arse! “Please, stay here until I leave. You don’t have to check him out, mostly because you’ve already done that. Please, Logan.”
“Fine. I’ll stay here. I won’t even look in your underwear drawer.”
There was nothing I could calmly reply to that so I gave him my stern glare and turned to leave.
“Chlo,” he said, gaining my attention again.
“Yes, Logan?”
“You look beautiful. Have a nice time.”
My heart warmed. “Thank you. I’ll call you when I get home.”
I left Logan in my room, hopefully not going through my underwear, and answered the door.
“Hey,” I said.
Rhys gave me a charming smile. “Hi. You look gorgeous.”
“Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.” He really didn’t in a simple blue shirt and jeans. Rhys was handsome enough to pull off pretty much anything; he had striking light green eyes that meant even the plainest outfits still made him stand out.
“Ready?” he asked.
Closing the front door, I replied, “Yes. Where are we going?”
“Somewhere.”
“What?” I said.
He unlocked his car. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
I hated surprises, always had and always would. I didn’t like the unknown. I had on my knee length white sundress, glamming it up a bit with accessories because I didn’t know what we were doing. Surely, he would have told me if I was dressed inappropriately for whatever he had planned.
“Nothing dangerous.”
His laugher echoed as we got in his car. “No, nothing dangerous. I’ll have you home in one piece, I promise.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
Rhys pulled out of the drive and I caught a glimpse of Logan watching us from my bedroom window. At least his spying meant he wasn’t perving, yet anyway.
The drive was taking entirely too long. Silences, when they were awkward, made time almost stand still. This was one of those times. Outside of work, me and Rhys never socialised and that was hard to force now. Say something, Chloe.
I managed to hold off on the awkward small talk or filling the silences with crap until we arrived at the local nature park.
“Picnic,” he said. “It’s a nice evening and I thought we could do something a little different to a drink at the local. I hope that’s okay?”
I was impressed. It was certainly a thoughtful first date and nice change from a pub. “This is great. I love picnics.”
He relaxed. “Good. I was worried for a second that you’d hate the idea and want to go back. There’s a really nice spot I used to go to with my family as a kid.”
“Lead the way then.”
Rhys grabbed the basket from the boot and we walked along one of the nature trails. I’d been along a few of them but this one was new to me. It was one of the shortest and if I was walking I usually wanted to get away for a good few hours.
“You been here before?” he asked.
“Yeah, I like the walks. Me and Logan have run a couple of them.”