Ty:
I can’t undo the past, but you can’t hold it against me forever.
Ty:
April?
She’d hadn’t replied to his messages since sheaccidentally answered his call over a week ago, and yet they persisted. Besides, he was right—she couldn’t hold it against him forever, because that would requirecaring. That didn’t mean she wanted anything to do with him, though.
Her fingers hovered over the screen and she clenched her jaw as she tapped the button that would block him from contacting her again. She would get Noah to pick up her stuff from the city if she had to, but she couldn’t move on if Tyler was blowing up her phone all the time.
Headlights washed over the front of the store and April looked up, heart beating harder as the sound of a car door slamming rang out through the calm of the evening.
A familiar silhouette approached the door and April opened it, flipping the lights off before she stepped out and locked up. As she turned, she found Luke waiting with a smile on his face and a bouquet of colorful flowers in his hands.
“Hey.” His voice was a little unsure, but the warmth in his eyes reassured her that it was just nerves. Had he expected her to stand him up? To regret what had happened in the store? She didn’t. “These are for you.”
She accepted the bunch of flowers and smiled up at him as she leaned down to inhale the fresh blooms. “These are beautiful. Where did you get them?”
A tinge of pink touched his cheeks as he guided her away from the store and toward his car parked a fewfeet away. “Well, the only florist in town isn’t open yet, so I had to improvise.”
April giggled but accepted the non-answer, for now. “So what’s the plan?”
“The plan is for you to come back to my place and have dinner with me.” He opened the car door for her and waited till she was comfortable before closing it and walking around to the driver’s side. The smell of something delicious wafted over to her and she glanced in the back to find a bag of takeout marked “The Garden Table”. “I hope you don’t mind takeout tonight.”
Penny’s food was too good to only be considered “takeout”, but she didn’t mind regardless. “Sounds good to me.”
Luke turned the ignition and she smiled into her flowers again, glancing up to find him watching her. “Did you bring a bag?”
She bit her lip before admitting, “I wasn’t sure what you had planned. I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”
To her surprise, he chuckled as he pulled away from the curb. “Let me guess—you packed the bare essentials into your purse just in case?” She spluttered and he flashed her a grin. “Classic, Jones.” Except, he didn’t say it the way Tyler might have, with disdain for her tendency to overthink and overprepare. Luke said it like he knew her and liked her quirks, and that feltgood. “I’m not trying to get you into bed, April. Or, at least, notonlythat,” he added and she laughed.“We’ll have some food, talk, and go from there, OK? No pressure.”
She nodded, surprised by how at ease she felt about him perceiving her so keenly. But he didn’t fault her for who she was and she hadn’t realized until right then that she couldn’t say the same for her relationship with Tyler.
April had never been to Luke’s before, so when they took the turning for the new town she looked at him in surprise. “You live up here?”
“Sort of.” His grin had her suspicions raised and, sure enough, they breezed through the lower side of the new town and took a left turn back out into the sticks.
“Pointer, are you bringing me out here to murder me?” she said lightly and he snorted.
“I live here, April.”
She looked around outside and was about to question what he meant byherewhen she saw it. A medium-sized farmhouse, tucked away off of a dirt track that Luke navigated with ease.
“Admit it,” he said as he pulled the car into the empty drive in front of the house. “You weren’t expecting this. I surprised you.”