Cane: It doesn’t matter. I will be there in 57 minutes. Be ready.
Me: What if I’m not here?
Cane: You will be.
Me: A bit arrogant, wouldn’t you say?
Cane: I’ve been called worse.
Me: You are impossible.
Cane: 55 minutes. Time is ticking.
I smiled and headed for the shower.
Fifty minutes later, I was standing in the kitchen when I heard the doorbell ring. My heart began to race as I made my way towards the door.
“Who is it?” I called, standing on my tiptoes to see through the peephole.
“There better only be one man coming to take you out tonight,” Cane said from the other side.
He was standing on the doorstep, looking more handsome than I had ever seen him. A tight black shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, a white t-shirt peeking out of the bottom. His hands were shoved in the pockets of dark jeans and he wore white sneakers.
He looked young, carefree, and divine.
I smoothed out my dress before popping open the door. Cane slowly removed his sunglasses from his face when he saw me.
“Hi, beautiful girl.”
He reached his hand out; his fingertips lightly touched my skin right below my ear, sending shivers down my spine. He slowly let them drift down my neck, a wave of goose bumps following in their wake. He took a step forward through the threshold.
“I told you that you would be here,” he whispered in my ear. I leaned my neck over to give him access. He stood up and laughed. “Come on. You look beautiful and we have places to be.”
“Where are we going?” I was curious as to what he had planned. We had never been anywhere together and he had told me he didn’t normally take women to dinner.
“You’ll see.”
This should be interesting.
I grabbed my purse and shut and locked the door behind me. Cane held the door to his black Denali open and I stepped inside the cool, clean cab.
He got in beside me and grabbed his sunglasses out of the front of his shirt, sliding them over his eyes. He smiled sexily and threw the car into reverse and jetted through the neighborhood until he hit the exit for the freeway.
“Holy hell, Cane!” I cried as he zipped through the traffic. “You’re going to kill me! Stop! Seriously! Or I won’t get back in here ever again, I swear to you.”
Cane threw his head back and laughed. “Well, being as though we just got on the same page, I’ll behave. It’s too soon to have you threatening to leave me.” He slowed to a more agreeable speed and turned on the radio, Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock singing about pictures. I relaxed back in the seat, watching the cacti fly by, feeling completely at peace and reveling in it.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“I got a lot of shit done, if that’s what you mean. How was your day?”
I sighed. “It was good, I guess. I wasn’t quite as productive as you, apparently. I just still feel so, I don’t know. Off, maybe. At least when I’m alone I do.”
He scowled. “I hate that you feel that way, baby. I wish I could do something to show you that everything is okay.” He reached his hand across the console and grabbed mine, running his thumb over my knuckles.
“When I’m with you, I believe that. But for some reason, when we are apart—”
“I get it. I feel the same way.” The corner of his lips turned up in a grin. “It’s fucking crazy, but with you, I feel really … centered? I don’t know what word to use. I just feel like everything is in focus when we are together. I can concentrate at work. I know what needs to be done.”
Warmth blossomed in my chest. “I know what you mean.”
“Crazy, right?”
I nodded.
We rode in silence for a while, Cane stroking my hand with his before linking our fingers together.
Finally, Cane turned south towards the mountains and I became curious. I held my tongue until I couldn’t take it anymore. “Where are we going?” Everything you would traditionally consider as date material was getting farther and farther behind us.
“Patience is a virtue,” Cane said.
“A virtue I’m lacking.”
“That’s okay,” Cane said, pulling into a little parking lot. “We’re here.”
We were on the outskirts of the city next to a little cantina, as the sign described. It was a little stucco building, the size of a large bedroom, with a metal roof and a little overhang where you could walk up to place your order. There were picnic tables scattered around the structure beneath the massive palm trees and other makeshift tables with hay bales as seats. White lights were strung haphazardly around and I couldn’t help but laugh.
This was so quaint, so random, and not at all what I expected. And I loved it.
I looked at Cane, curious, silently asking him if he wanted to explain. He shrugged his shoulders and tucked his sunglasses into the front of his shirt before shoving his hands into his pockets; he looked a little embarrassed.