Once we’d slid into our booth—I’d had to eye the bench across from me when Luke started to slide in beside me—the hostess handed us our menus with shaky hands. “I’ll take your order whenever you’re ready.” Her voice was just as shaky.
“We’re ready now.” Luke set the menu down and leaned across the table a little. “Do you mind if I order for you?” he whispered. “Because some girls really hate that, and you seem like one of those who might not be so into it.”
I sighed to myself. I was sure this star-struck girl was harmless, but most people were not. If he really did mean to keep us a secret, he was going to have to figure out that he couldn’t ask me those types of questions with those types of looks when others were around.
“I don’t mind if you order for me this time. As long as you get my order right.” I set my menu down and motioned at him to proceed.
The hostess couldn’t make eye contact with Luke as he ordered. “We’d like two coffees with milk and sugar. She’d like the hubcap pancakes with a side of scrambled eggs and bacon.” Luke jacked his brows at me like he was waiting for me to congratulate him or something for getting my order right. “And I’ll have the southwest omelet with hash browns and wheat toast.”
As soon as she finished writing down our orders, she bolted away, forgetting to collect the menus.
“Creature of habit too?” I asked, noticing he’d had the same thing for breakfast two mornings ago.
“When you find something you love and that works, why switch it up?”
“See? You get it. Everyone else says it’s boring, but knowing what you love isn’t boring. It’s a sign of maturity and not being afraid to commit. All of those people who are always into trying new things are the ones I don’t get. It’s like holding a sign that says ‘I don’t know what I like or what I want because I don’t know who I am.’” When I finally came up for air, I realized I’d just given him an earful at the crack of dawn. “Sorry.”
He waved it off, looking amused. “Personal soapbox?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, relieved when our coffees showed up.
The hostess’s hands were still shaking, which was dangerous when she was holding two cups of coffee balanced on saucers, so I took each cup from her and set it down. She threw me a relieved look before dropping the sugar caddy and milk ramekin between us and dashing back to the kitchen.
“You’re a thoughtful person,” Archer said, taking the sugar packet I held out for him.
“I just didn’t want to have to worry about treating heat blisters on your body in addition to what I already have to treat.”
Archer chuckled as he stirred the sugar into his coffee. “So tell me about Allie Eden pre athletic trainer extraordinaire.” He must have noticed the flash of panic that hit my face. “Not the exhaustive biography, just the Cliff’s Notes. For now, at least.”
Fixing my coffee, I stalled. How did one sum up their life in a few sentences? “I don’t know, I grew up in a small town in Indiana, got my undergrad from Michigan State, and my graduate degree from UCLA. That’s about it.”
Luke tilted his head, mild amusement settling on his face. “Your family?”
“Oh,” I swallowed, taking a drink of coffee. “My dad and mom still live back in Indiana. They got divorced when I was little, so I was shuffled around from house to house. I go home every once in a while, maybe at Thanksgiving or Christmas to visit.”
“Do they ever come visit you at your home?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Flying to California is like flying to Mongolia to them. And the apartment I have back in California is not what I’d call ‘my home.’ It’s more of a dwelling than anything.”
He clasped his hands together, watching me. “Siblings?”
Another head shake. “Only child.”
“That must have been lonely.”
“It wasn’t so much that. It was more feeling like I never had anywhere to call home, you know? I never felt like I had a place where I just knew it was home.” I shrugged, trying to play it off, but really, I’d never felt like I had a home my whole life. I went from being a child passed from house to house, to a student changing from dorm to dorm, to a woman moving from apartment to apartment.
He watched me for a minute. Just as it looked as though he were about to say something, his phone rang in his pocket.
“Sorry, I thought I’d turned it off,” he said, pulling it out to check the screen.
It wasn’t like I was trying to look, but I didn’t miss the name flashing on it—Alexis. I got back to making my coffee, feeling ridiculous for the tinge of jealousy settling into my stomach as I accepted that Luke Archer had had other women in his life before me.
“It’s my sister,” he said.
And just when I thought I couldn’t feel any more ridiculous . . .
“Go ahead and take it,” I said.
“You sure? This is a date—our first date—and what kind of date am I if I answer my phone on it?”