“Good. I’ll go get it.” Another cue. His head was buzzing as he went inside. The sunflowers were tucked away in the one place he didn’t think she’d venture into—his office. He brought them out, feeling his palms sweat. He’d already made at least three romantic gestures. Was this too much? Oh, screw it.
He popped the champagne and poured two glasses. Drinking champagne was rare for him, so she’d recognize the gesture. Tucking the flowers into the crook of his arm, he headed back to the patio. She was stroking Touchdown’s fur, and the dog was so contented he looked asleep. Blake hung back for a moment to watch her, and then he set the glasses down and gently arranged the flowers by the plate he’d set for her.
“Thought you might like a little sunshine,” he said. God, he was a total cornball. His cheeks flushed, and he hoped it was too dark for her to see.
She bit her lip, and his whole world stopped. He waited, fighting the urge to snatch them back. What the heck good would that do? He couldn’t very well run back into the house with them and pretend he’d never presented them to her.
Her fingers touched the petals. “These are lovely. Thank you, Blake.”
His stomach gurgled, and he pressed a hand to it, his cheeks turning even warmer.
“You must be hungry.”
No, he thought, I’m stressed out from trying to romance my ex-wife. “I’ll…ah…go get the appetizers.”
“Appetizers too?” she asked with some surprise in her tone.
“Nothing fancy. Just a simple antipasti tray Grace suggested. Any moron can buy cheese, crackers, and olives.”
She was still tracing the sunflowers. “Any moron, huh?”
Rather than answer, he whipped around and headed into the house. Grace had put up with his little freak-out earlier after he realized he’d bought the wrong cheese. She’d suggested blue, so he’d picked up one that looked blue to him, only to discover it was called Roquefort. Grace had just laughed and told him it was totally all right. Roquefort was a blue cheese.
When he brought out the tray—one he’d bought at the local cheese shop—she made a humming sound in her throat that drove him wild. Her love of food had always been its own aphrodisiac. Watching her enjoy her meal was like watching porn, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that.
“I can see Grace’s influence here,” she said as she dipped one of the walnuts into the slice of honeycomb he’d arranged next to the blue cheese. “You’re expanding your horizons.”
You expand my horizons.
“Lucky me,” he forced out instead and sat down across from her, feeling sweat gather under his armpits. Great. He’d need to change shirts before the evening was over at this rate.
Grabbing his glass of champagne, he raised it for a toast. “To the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said before he could stop himself.
She flinched, a simple ripple moving across her face. His gut burned in despair.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“No…it’s…okay.”
They missed each other’s glasses and had to try again. They were totally out of sync now. He could feel their newfound ease drifting away like smoke in the wind.
“I wanted tonight to be special for you,” he decided to admit. “I might have overdone things. How about we start again? I can take these flowers inside, and if you want to take them home later, you can. And I’ll put on some music. How about Imagine Dragons?”
He’d caught her dancing to their music in the kitchen on their last Outlander date. He stood and reached for the flowers, but before he could pick them up, she put her hand over his.
“Don’t even think about touching my flowers.”
His heart drummed under his ribs as their eyes met. He dropped his hand and went inside. Once the music was on, the ease came back in stages. He told her his story about the blue cheese freak-out because he knew it would make her laugh. And it did. But she also studied him intently, and he knew it was because she could hear the things he hadn’t said.
A Super Bowl MVP had freaked out because he was worried about buying the wrong cheese for a date.
When he went to check on the ribs, she came up behind him at the grill. For a man who was known for being good with his hands, he was all thumbs with her beside him. Her perfume tickled his nose. Her body heat was fiercer than the red-hot coals. He dropped the tongs twice before she laid her hand over his and helped.
“Squeeze here,” she instructed.
He almost fell to his knees right then and there from the sheer lust that shot through him at those words.
“How about you do it?” he asked, brushing the sweat beading at his temple now.
She rubbed his back, and his hips twitched. God, he hoped she hadn’t noticed.
“No. You can do this. I like seeing you cook. It looks good on you.”