“Have dinner with me?” he asked.
“Oh, um…” Sophie glanced up into Jeff’s classically handsome face. She’d always liked him, and the old Sophie might have even had something of a crush. But now he seemed so…bland.
“Come on, Soph, it’s not a marriage proposal. Just food,” he teased.
“Sorry, Jeff. She already has plans.”
Jeff and Sophie both spun around to see Gray standing a few feet away. She raised a challenging eyebrow at him, but didn’t break eye contact. What game was he playing now?
“Oh. Sure, sorry, boss,” Jeff said in obvious puzzlement.
“It was, um, part of our bet,” she said nervously to Jeff, hoping to avoid any awkward explanations. “I said I’d buy Mr. Wyatt dinner if he won.”
“That’s not why we’re having dinner,” Gray said, walking toward them.
“Okay, okay,” Jeff said raising his hands in bemused surrender. “I’ll let you guys work out whatever you need to. See you Monday.”
“Jeff…I…” Sophie said awkwardly, as he began to walk away. Jeff waved a hand at her as though dismissing the entire episode.
“Don’t worry about it, babe.” He winked and then spotted the cute receptionist. “Yo, Rachel! Wait up!”
“Hmm, he moves fast,” Gray said blandly.
“What was that about?” she hissed at the gloating man beside her.
“Let’s go, I’m starving.”
Her jaw dropped. “Just like that? And what do you mean, you’re starving? I had Seattle’s best caterers here. Didn’t you eat?”
“I don’t want that stuff, I want my cooking,” he said as he began storming toward the parking lot.
“Snob,” she said. But she found herself trailing after him, trying to figure out whether this was a continuation of their manufactured “friendship,” or a follow-up to the kiss.
Hell, maybe it was just a caveman routine. He didn’t want her, but didn’t want Jeff to have her either. His whispered words echoed through her mind again, and she nearly stumbled at the memory.
I think you’re mine.
She skidded to a halt as reality sunk in. “I need to go make sure clean up is under control.”
He turned around. “So make a phone call.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He narrowed his right back. A challenge.
“Okay, I’ll go with you, but I’m not helping you cook,” she said.
“As if I’d let you anywhere near a knife.”
“Is this like a…friends’ dinner?”
He signed and moved toward her. Leaning down, he stamped an impatient kiss on her lips. Pulled back. Did it again, lingering this time. Well, that answered that question.
Friends didn’t kiss like that.
“Okay?” he asked impatiently.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Excellent. Now let’s get going. I want to stop and get a first-aid kit on the way.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I can’t believe you made me eat so much,” Sophie groaned as she curled up on Gray’s couch, pulling her bare feet beneath her.
“I can’t believe you made me start a fire,” he replied.
Sophie snorted. “By ‘start a fire,’ I suppose you mean flipping a switch and letting the gas flames roar to life?”
“Still, it’s May. You’re wearing shorts and sandals. A fire feels incongruous.”
“It’s cozy,” she corrected as she accepted the glass of dessert wine he handed her, loving the casual way he let his fingers brush hers as though they’d done this a thousand times before. As though they hadn’t spent the past months either ignoring each other or clawing at each other’s throats or tearing out each other’s hearts.
He settled on the couch next to her, not quite touching, but close enough for her to feel his body warmth. Sophie longed to lean against him, but as much progress as they’d made today, she wasn’t sure he was ready for companionable contact.
She’d never seen Gray like this. He was easy, comfortable. Perhaps not quite chatty, but he’d lost that wary, nervous look he’d always worn like a suit of armor.
Was this a date?
As with their first disastrous dinner, the food had been fabulous. He claimed that he would just “whip something up,” which, in the Wyatt home, apparently equated to veal carpaccio, beet and arugula salad, and some sort of delicate fish in a delicious vanilla-saffron sauce.
Sophie had been the one to keep the conversation light and easy, as was her expertise, but he’d more than held his own, even opening up about his hopes of improving his relationships with Jack and Jenna. They both stared quietly into the fire for a moment, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, Sophie felt content.
There was nobody she had to impress or comfort or appease. She could just be.