He leans over and tips my chin up, and I push his hand away and laugh. “Of course not! Why would I be?” I ask, and hate that I feel myself flushing more as I busily strap on my seat belt.
He smiles to himself as he starts the car and pulls out into the road. We stop to have coffee first. We sit in comfortable silence while Tahoe reads the newspaper and I watch the city awaken, minute by minute as the sun rises. And by the time the Blommer Chocolate Company opens and Tahoe is leading me toward the doors of the factory, not the store, I stop in my tracks.
“Tahoe, there’s a reason I haven’t used the voucher you gave me. People don’t go in here for tours. I’ve never even heard of it? people don’t do this,” I say.
“They don’t,” he agrees with a grin, and then he keeps heading toward the factory door. “But you do.”
Anticipation courses through my veins. I feel like I won the last golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory as Tahoe leads me straight into the noisy, monstrously large building. A man who clearly has an important position in the factory, based on his clothes, greets us and walks us through the building. There are no chocolate waterfalls or Oompa Loompas. This is modern-world business on a grand scale. Huge melting tanks bigger than I am, liquid chocolate, and cocoa and sugar are all around.
The best part comes when we finally hit the store and can get our hands on the chocolates. There is dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate; chocolate-covered cashews, pretzels, bananas, strawberries, and cherries.
“Wait for the best part.” He smirks as he motions toward something behind the register, covered from view.
The man gives T-Rex a secretive smile and pulls off the cover.
I’m staring at an enormous chocolate Versailles castle. I’m beyond speechless.
He chuckles, leads me around the register, and points at it. “They even have the windows right.” I can feel his gaze on my profile, taking in my reaction.
It’s hard to keep myself in check.
I turn to him—happy, confused, disbelieving, humbled, happy. “You want me to eat my own house? You are shameless.” My voice is breathless despite my words.
For a whole minute, he looks at me with this adorable smile and one lone dimple. Almost as if he’s waiting for me to say more.
The stare wears me down. I drop the act, step into his arms, and hug him. I just hug him and feel him hug me back so easily, and fit me right into his frame, his arms enveloping me like a world of warmth.
I’m not a hugger, so I’m surprised by how much I’d like to hug Tahoe for a long time.
“Happy birthday, Regina,” he says with a textured, drawling voice in my ear.
“Thank you, T-Rex. I didn’t know you knew.”
I pull away with effort and stare back at the castle, blinking away the sting in my eyes.
Ten minutes later we’re outside on a bench by my apartment, enjoying the warm summer wind as we exchange an assortment of bags loaded with chocolates. I nudge him with a bag. “Try this one.”
He nudges me back with his finger before he takes it and pops a chocolate-covered cashew in his mouth. “Nice.”
I look away, out at the street, in a desperate attempt to resist his captivating grin.
As he walks me back home, I’m still carrying a month’s supply of chocolate treats and already feeling remorse about having devoured all that chocolate.
Things feel easy again, almost as easy as before. If only my body weren’t so hyperaware of his proximity.
I’m thinking about it, about him having my picture, pecking me on the lips, when his gentle nudge brings me back from my daydreams.
“Still with me?” He quirks a brow, puzzled as he looks down at me.
I nod quickly. “I was thinking that only a best guy friend would give a girl this much chocolate. Otherwise he’d have to sleep with the chocolate padding her curves.”
“You’re kidding.” He stops walking and incredulously narrows his eyes, which gleam incredibly blue. His eyes leave mine in frustration then they come back, more piercing than ever. “Your curves are succulent. A guy could play with those for hours.”
A sky full of butterflies bursts inside my stomach, and I feel myself heat up.
“Shut up,” I whisper, nudging him with a scowl, unable to look into his eyes. “Everyone and everything is succulent for a T-Rex.”
His eyes become hooded. “Not this one,” he says.
And it’s the way he says it that keeps making these butterflies flap wildly inside me.
I look at him, see the heat in his eyes, and I am so scared to get hurt again.
To get hurt a thousand times more than I ever have.
And I think that he knows it too. There’s never been a guy in my life more protective of me than he is—to the point of protecting me from himself.
But that only makes me feel even more warmly toward him.
He follows me into my brand-new apartment. He sets my chocolate Versailles on my coffee table, and spots my MAC makeup box on the couch. I seemed to have left it there the night before.