“Just don’t stay out too late,” my dad finally said, maybe, amazingly, understanding some of my thought process.
I nodded, feeling relief start to course through me. “Will do.” I looked at Clark, more than ready to stop standing in this foyer. “Ready to go?” Clark nodded harder than people normally do, letting me believe that he was probably feeling the same way. “See you later,” I said to my dad as I took a step toward the door.
“Oh,” my dad said, like he just remembered something. “I meant to tell you not to answer any calls from numbers you don’t know. Peter thinks one of the interns might have ‘misplaced’ our cell numbers, and reporters might be calling for quotes.”
Now it was Clark’s turn to look nonplussed. “Reporters?” he asked. He looked at my dad and snapped his fingers. “You’re . . . I saw you on CNN,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar! Senator—”
“Congressman Walker,” my dad interrupted. Then he added, “At least, I used to be.”
I could see it in Clark’s face, the dawning realization of just why my dad looked familiar and why he’d been on CNN in the first place. “Oh, right,” he said, his voice quiet. “Sorry—I didn’t . . .” He looked at me, and I looked down at my sandals. “I didn’t realize,” he said quietly, now looking more embarrassed than ever.
“I was going to mention it later,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, but have you two met before?” My dad looked between us and then let out a big belly laugh.
Clark and I glanced at each other, and I felt my face get hot. It was bad enough for both of us to probably be thinking that without my dad coming out and saying it.
“Well, you two have fun,” my dad said, starting to head back toward his study, a laugh still lingering in his voice.
I turned to Clark when he was gone. “Should we go?”
“Let’s,” Clark said immediately.
? ? ?
Twenty minutes later I set my menu aside and looked across the table at Clark at the Boxcar Cantina. It was a Mexican place in town that Tom loved, and so Palmer was always insisting we go there after his opening nights and for his birthday. It was small, and a little bit dark, with candles in brightly colored glass holders on all the tables and a roving mariachi band Palmer always tipped extra so they’d play mariachi “Happy Birthday” for Tom. It had been Clark’s pick—he’d asked as we drove over if it was okay with me—and when we’d arrived, I’d been surprised and impressed when he gave his name to the hostess, who walked us to a table, holding our laminated menus.
Now that we were no longer in his kitchen, Clark seemed a lot less nervous—holding the car door open for me, making small talk, taking charge of things in a way I appreciated, since we were on the kind of date I usually didn’t go on.
“So,” Clark said, setting his own menu aside and smiling at me. “Congress, huh?”
I raised an eyebrow back at him. “Bestselling fantasy novels?”
He laughed, still sounding a little embarrassed. “Maybe we should start over,” he said, holding out his hand across the table to me. “Clark Bruce McCallister.”
I smiled at that. “Alexandra Molly Walker.” I reached across the table and took his hand. His palm was cool against mine, and as his fingers closed around my hand, I felt something run through me. It wasn’t a spark, or a shiver, or anything I’d heard described in cheesy love songs. It was more like when someone touches you on a spot near where you’re ticklish, that kind of heightened awareness. Like I’d never known there were so many nerve endings in my fingers. I pulled my hand back quickly, even though something in me was telling me to leave it there and also see what would happen if I touched his arm.
“Bruce?” I asked, placing my hands around my water glass, trying to get myself to focus.
“Yeah,” Clark said with a shrug. “I thought using my initials for my books made me sound more grown-up.”
“Totally,” I said, my voice overly serious. “It’s very distinguished.”
He smiled at that and leaned forward slightly, toward me. “So where’s the ‘Molly’ come from?”
I kept my expression the same, but I could feel the low-level anxiety start to build somewhere around my stomach, which was starting to knot. I hadn’t expected to be confronted with this—not right now, not right off the bat. “It was my mom’s name,” I said quickly, giving him a bright smile, thinking that now would be a great time for our waiter to take our order, or bring us some chips, or something.