Page 16 of The Dating Charade

“What kind of bike?”

“Road bike, and an officer caught me going pretty fast—”

“How fast?”

Here, his face and tone always had difficulty showing any remorse. “Clocked me at fifty-two.”

“Fifty-two miles an hour? On a road bike?” A crack began to sliver across her forehead, revealing the merest glimmer of intrigue. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

She was impressed. Not fretting that he was reckless, not breaking into an emotional, womanly monologue about how dangerous road biking was, how one slick rock could’ve made his bike skid off and fly him into the trees. She wasn’t going to tell him about how that one sister’s-cousin’s-boyfriend’s-brother read in the paper once that some guy fell off his bike in Alaska and was immediately paralyzed from the neck down. Either she didn’t care about him enough to worry about his safety or—and what he felt more assured of—the littlest flicker of the real Cassie was coming out. The strong one. The competitive one.

Gaining confidence, he switched his jacket from one hand to another. “To be honest, I think I got a couple miles higher than that, but that’s what got put onto my ticket.”

She grinned openly now. “For racing on a road bike? I can’t believe they actually ticket for that.”

“Well, when the person you dethroned from the KOM is the officer who chased you down the mountain, they sometimes take it personally.”

She laughed then, the hazel in her eyes sparkling nearly as much as the glitter shadow above it. “And nothing else I should be aware of?”

“I’m still getting grilled? I sent you a background check. You know my credit score!”

She tipped her chin up. “Not as high as my 788, but you can’t be too picky these days.”

“Oh, good.” He inched a step toward her. “Then I can explain the alektorophobia.”

“The what?” She picked up on his sarcasm, her smile meeting her eyes.

An eager kid in a blue coat raced to the glass wall, knocking against her knees. She kept her eyes on him while stepping out of the kid’s way, her palm pressing against the glass.

“Fear of chickens. Terrible, horrible fear of chickens. Can’t even see eggs. IHOP is my nemesis.”

“IHOP,” she repeated, “is your nemesis.”

Jett saw Bree swimming over before Cassie did, and following his eyes, Cassie turned too. As if realizing she had touched a hot burner, Cassie’s hand slipped off the glass.

“Ready to move on?” she said hurriedly.

Jett grinned and planted his boots where they were. “Oh, look, Cassie. That diver’s coming our way.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Sure.” Jett pointed to Bree, now squarely in front of them. “Look, she’s waving at us. How nice.”

He started waving back heartily, and Cassie began alternating between what was obviously a wave and a clear false-alarm-go-away sign. Instead, to Cassie’s horror and Jett’s mirth, Bree put her fist to the window and banged against the glass.

Bree had been right. That definitely gathered a crowd.

“Bye-bye, now.” Cassie waved to the diver and, obviously at a point of desperation, slipped her arm around his elbow. “I’m starving. Do you want to get something to eat?”

Jolted by the sudden lock of their arms, his eyes broke from the glass down to Cassie. Back in his youth, she’d been the towering royal elf, Galadriel in bell-bottoms, the five-nine queen. Now he had over six inches on her, high enough to smell the coconut in her conditioner. Her eyes were begging, imploring him to move on, move away.

His smile gentled, voice softening. “You’re stealing my lines now, Cassie Everson.”

And as he urged her with a flick of his eyes to look through the glass, he watched her read the words scribbled across the underwater writing slate in Bree’s hands: Congratulations! You are our 100,000,000,000th visitors! Enjoy complimentary meal for two at The Cobbler’s Steakhouse. Reservations: 7 p.m.

“How many is that, Mom?” A kid tugged and pointed at the excessive zeros carried across the slate.

After one very, very long minute of reading and rereading the slate, Cassie looked up to Jett. There was an insuppressible grin and distinct sparkle in her eyes, as though he had at last pressed the right combination and the vault had clicked and opened. What had been the merest flicker of a dying bulb finally struck full power.