Page 134 of Gabriel
Shaking my head, I hop down the steps from my porch, hoping Wyatt will follow. “If you look in her direction for too long, she’s going to take it as an invitation to come outside and the next thing you know, you’ll be having dinner with my parents instead of the two of us going out.”
Wyatt chuckles, falling into step beside me. “Good to know. Though for the record, dinner with you and your parents sounds like a pretty good time.”
I look up at him, expecting to find a mocking smile or some other indication that he’s kidding, but instead, I find a genuine grin. He really wouldn’t mind having dinner with my parents. Huh, that’s interesting. Most guys see parents and want to bolt.
I hesitate by his car—an all-black Ford truck—and try to quell my sudden uneasiness. “Do you, uh, want to drive separately? I can follow you to The Wolf Den in my Jeep.” I didn’t really think the whole, picking me up for our date thing through, and I won’t lie, being in an enclosed space with him sounds mildly terrifying right now. “You know, that way you don’t have to bring me all the way home afterwards.” Win, win. Right? Please say yes.
Wyatt gives me a perplexed look as he unlocks and opens the passenger side door. “That’s okay,” he says, stepping to the side. “We can use the ride over to talk and get to know each other. Besides—” Worrying my bottom lip, I reluctantly climb in. “Pretty sure I’d lose points with your mom if I wasn’t an absolute gentleman.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder, so I look.
Oh, my god. She’s still watching us.
With a groan, I cover my face. “You win.”
He chuckles and closes my door before jogging around to the other side. I fiddle with the heater while he gets himself settled, and then we’re on our way. When he’s not looking, I plug The Wolf Den into my maps app on my phone and discreetly track our progress. I’m not worried we’ll get lost or anything. But itfeels prudent to make sure we don’t take any unplanned detours. You know, safety first.
When we arrive, Wyatt is quick to hop out, rushing to my side to open my door before I even have the chance to unbuckle my seatbelt.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
His smile is wide, and he reaches a hand out to help me out of the truck. Placing my hand in his, I ignore the boulder that rolls in my stomach and accept his help jumping down from the vehicle.
“Gentleman, remember?” he says with a wink.
Tugging on my hand, Wyatt leads me inside. His touch is unnerving, though not entirely unwelcome. He doesn’t make my skin crawl or anything like that, but my hand quickly grows sweaty in his hold. I focus on the surrounding people, taking in the boisterous music and rowdy crowd. My heart races, and I flex my fingers, wishing he’d let go of me.
Yeah, so maybe it is a little unwelcome.
Damn.
A hostess directs us to a table, and we take our seats. Wyatt finally releases me to slide into the booth seat across from me, and I exhale a breath of relief. Rubbing my hands on my thighs, I reach for my menu and skim over the options.
“Do you come here a lot?” Not my best opening line, but I’ve never claimed to be good at small talk.
“Yeah. Once a week or better,” he says. “Most Friday nights after a game.”
“A game?” I didn’t realize he played a sport. Or maybe he just means after watching one?
“Yeah. I’m on the football team, and the guys and I like to grab a drink and some food afterward. Have you been to any of our games?”
“Not this year, but,” I shrug, “I used to go watch a lot of the games last season.” When I was in cheer, it was sort of a requirement.
“The season’s almost over,” he tells me. “You’ll have to come to a game before it ends. We’re crushing it this year.”
I make a noncommittal sound. “Maybe.”
Our waitress arrives at our table then and offers to take our orders before whisking our menus away and promising to return soon with our drinks. Conversation moves smoothly after that. Nothing too deep. Wyatt’s a Sophomore at PacNorth working on a degree in structural engineering. He’s a grade level below me, but we’re the same age—twenty-one.
He took a year off after high school to sort out what he wanted to do. Something I secretly wish I’d considered. He plays football, obviously. Running back, which is kinda cool. It makes sense why he’s in such good shape. Not that I’ve really noticed. He just has broad shoulders, I mean.
He has one brother and one sister. Both are younger. His brother is still in high school and his sister—Willow—is a freshman on the swim team. We haven’t really talked much since I joined the team, but she seems nice. Quiet. She’s like me and mostly keeps to herself. Hopefully, she doesn’t mind that her brother and I are on a date. I probably should have felt her out about that before agreeing. What if she is vehemently opposed to her teammates going out with her brother? Not that we’re likegoing out, or going steady.Whatever people call it these days. It’s just one date. We’re not likedating.
Exhaling a sigh, I pick at my napkin, tearing off small pieces until I’m left with a small pile of shreds.
I’m making this too complicated.
It’s just that dating a teammate’s brother or ex, that sort of thing, can get messy. I doubt Wyatt and I will go out again, so it shouldn’t be a problem, but yeah. I mean, maybe I’ll check inwith Willow tomorrow or something. Make sure everything is okay.
No. That’s dumb. We’ve never even talked before, and she is the one that asked Adriana if I was seeing anyone. It’s fine. Why am I spiraling over this?
