“Do you want to join the others or do our own thing?”
Her mind was still spinning from their kiss. He must have sensed it in her silence, because he went on to explain. “When I called to make reservations, they said we could paint what the instructor is painting.” He pointed at a tall guy who was walking from table to table, looking over the paintings and commenting on each one. “Or we can go totally rogue and do our own thing.”
“That’s what I want to do,” she said, feeling silly for being so awestruck. “Our own thing.”
“A woman after my own heart.” He held her gaze, and when his phone vibrated with a call, it reminded her that she needed to check her webcast.
“Why don’t you take that call while I run to the ladies’ room, and then we can paint.”
Blue slid from the booth and reached for her hand, pulling her against him. “Is it cheesy to tell you that I’ll miss you while you’re gone?” He cracked a smile, but she was too lost in the feel of his arms around her and the press of his muscles against her chest to care if it was cheesy.
“I kind of like cheesy.”
His lips met hers in another sensual, sizzling kiss, and then he held her hand until she’d taken too many steps to keep holding it, and that fraction of a second, with his eyes on her, his fingertips grazing the tips of hers, felt like a scene from a movie, and it made Lizzie even dizzier.
She walked in a daze to the ladies’ room, coming back to the present the moment the door clicked shut behind her. She pulled out her cell phone and tried to find a signal. Nearly all of the lower Cape had spotty Internet and cell service. She held the phone over her head. Still no signal. Damn. She stepped from the ladies’ room and into the hall, holding her phone high above her head, glad the hallway turned a corner so Blue couldn’t see her. Her phone finally picked up a signal. She navigated to her Naked Baker site and clicked play on the newest show.
She paced the narrow hall, holding the phone over her head and praying no one came in from the dining room. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared up at the video loading as slowly as molasses dripping from a jar, and suddenly her sexy voice filled the air.
Shitshitshit. She pressed the volume button to mute as Blue came around the corner.
“Hey there. Everything okay?” He eyed her phone as she clicked off the video and shoved it into her back pocket.
“Yeah.” Thinkthinkthink! “Maddy called, but I lost the signal.” She hated lying at all, but lying to Blue felt like the biggest, most painful lie she’d ever told. Even worse than when she’d snuck out of her parents’ house to meet a boy in high school, and that was pretty darn bad.
“Do you want to call her back? We can step outside to get a signal.”
He was so thoughtful and considerate, and she was still keeping her secret. She couldn’t do this to him, not when everything he did was with her best interests at heart. It wasn’t fair to either of them. She’d make it through this date, and then she’d end it. She couldn’t play with his trust, and she couldn’t reveal the Naked Baker to a guy like Blue, either.
I hope you appreciate all that I do for you, Maddy.
She forced a smile, knowing Maddy appreciated everything she was ever given. Her younger sister wasn’t selfish like many teens. She was considerate to a fault, which was one of the reasons Lizzie was willing to put herself out there to give her a leg up in life. It wasn’t Maddy’s fault their parents couldn’t afford college for her, and Lizzie knew how school loans would strap her sister down after college. Thank God for Cooking with Coeds, and in turn, for the Naked Baker.
“No, it’s okay,” she answered as they walked back to the table. “Did I take that long?”
“Not that long. The waiter brought our dinner.”
She had taken a long time. At least she’d seen and heard the very start of the webcast, which meant it was probably playing properly.
They shared their meal and drank wine while they talked. It was nice being alone with Blue, just as she’d known it would be.
“I knew you and Maddy were close, but I never realized she called you about dates and stuff. That’s nice,” he said.
“It is nice. We talk about everything. But you seem just as close with your siblings.” He was so easy to talk to. He listened so intently to her while watching her with those piercing eyes of his, she was unable to resist falling right back into their intimacy. She speared a piece of steak with her fork and fed it to him.
“Mm. I like this arrangement.” He swallowed the steak and said, “We talk about everything, too. There are lots of us, though, so we tend to be close in pairs, and those pairings vary based on what’s going on in our lives.” He fed her a tomato from the salad and followed the fork with a quick kiss that made it taste a million times better.