“Same time next week?” Leni asked as she gathered her things. “I want to try casting spells now that I’m at level two.”
“Works for me,” Jo said.
“Definitely,” Felix agreed. “I’m going to need another go at this before I’m set loose on the unsuspecting public.”
Jo slipped off to the bathroom while Felix unlocked the front door for Leni and shut down the library for the night, running back over the game in his mind. When he returned to the reading room to pack up his MnM things, Jo wasn’t back yet. He furrowed his brow, wondering if he should be worried about her.
“Ahem.”
He turned, and there she was. In the doorway of the reading room, transformed.
They had texted about her getting dressed up for their date. He’d forgotten all about that once their conversation went to more interesting places and pictures became involved. Now, he remembered, and his eyes trailed over her.
Jo wore a white sundress patterned with bright yellow lemons and pale green leaves. It was low-cut, sleeveless, and fell to mid-thigh, showing off more of her skin than usual. Her tattoo peeked around either side of the shoulder strap. Felix saw a glimpse of what looked like white, lace-edged bike shorts peeking out from under the flared skirt. On her feet were strappy yellow sandals with heels, and she wore a chunky bright teal necklace and matching bracelet. Her hair was down and straight, her glasses were nowhere to be seen, and she’d touched up her makeup. She’d added lipstick, the same dark red one she’d been wearing the night they’d met. Those lips had haunted him for days afterward. No doubt they would again.
“You’re so beautiful, Jo,” he breathed. “You look amazing.”
“I clean up nice, huh?” she said, twirling as she came into the room. Her skirt lifted, granting him a better look at those cute shorts that hugged her form.
He slid his hand around her waist, and she leaned into him. She was taller in heels, naturally. He liked it. It would make her that much easier to kiss. “Now I feel underdressed. I should have brought a tie.”
“No, you look perfect.” Jo smoothed her hand over the collar of his forest-green dress shirt, stirring his blood in his veins. Then she stroked his cheek, her thumb on the gray stubble on his chin. “You’re always gorgeous.”
Something else, something fathomless and unnameable, stirred within Felix at her words. He bumped her nose with his. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”
“Well, it’s true. You’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever known.”
“Tell me something, Jo,” he said. “Will I smear that wicked lipstick if I kiss you right now?”
She shook her head. “It’s lip stain. It’ll—”
Felix didn’t wait to hear what it would do. He kissed Jo with all the affection and all the aching hunger inside him. She curled her fingers around his neck. Her thumb brushed the shell of his ear, sending tingles down his spine. Fuck if she didn’t always know exactly how to touch him to give him the most magnificent shivers. Places he didn’t even know he liked to be touched until Jo was the one doing the touching.
Her lips curved into a smile against his. “We’re at your workplace, gorgeous. I hope there aren’t cameras in here.”
Felix sighed through his nose. “I like that. ‘Gorgeous.’”
“Then I’d better keep saying it.”
“You’re right, though.” He released Jo and missed her warmth immediately. “Shall we go to dinner?”
“I’m famished.”
On the forty-minute drive to Wichita, they talked about MnM. The sight of Jo in that dress had thrown him for a loop, but there were some questions still on his mind. Felix wasn’t sure he’d be able to fully relax and enjoy their date until he hashed through them, and Jo assured him she didn’t mind. He asked her about what she would do in certain situations, beginning with tonight’s game and then expanding to some of the things he’d seen at Indi-Con. She gave him long and detailed answers, apologizing more than once for going on and on. Each time, Felix told her it was fine, that she didn’t need to be sorry.
And each time, his chest ached to hear her second-guess herself, to assume that he didn’t care what she had to say, even when he was asking her direct questions. It reminded him of that night at Stan’s, back when they were first getting to know each other. Felix had thought they’d moved past this trepidation of hers. After weeks of MnM lessons, after Indi-Con, after he’d met her friends from California, how could she still think she needed to hold herself back from him? There were no traces of apology about her when they were with Leni, but now that they were alone, something had changed.
Felix would have bet Tito’s house that it had something to do with her ex. Trey had told him the guy didn’t play MnM. The hard, flat “no” Trey had given him made Felix believe there was a story there. One that, by rights, was Jo’s story to tell. How would he even broach that subject? He certainly wasn’t going to bring it up now, mere minutes from the restaurant on their first official date.
Should he even bring it up at all, though? He didn’t want to force Jo to talk about her douchebag of an ex. Again. Even if the other times hadn’t been intentional, he’d asked uncomfortable questions with uncomfortable answers. Most couples didn’t talk about their past relationships, especially the shitty ones, so soon. There had to be a better approach, a way to remind her that he wasn’t that guy. A way to help her trust him.
When he parked at the restaurant, he angled toward her. “I hope you know how much I love listening to you talk about MnM. I appreciate how passionate you are about it, and I’m in awe of how much you know every time I ask you questions.”
Jo fiddled with the lace on her shorts, staring at her hands. He willed her to look at him, but she didn’t.
“I know,” she whispered. “Sometimes I forget that, but I know.”
He couldn’t take it any longer; he touched her chin and turned her to face him. Her eyes shone in the orange lamplight. He glimpsed uneasiness there for just a moment, then it melted away. Jo mouthed the words “thank you.” Tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying loosened from his shoulders. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“So, where have you brought me, gorgeous?” she asked, blinking her eyes clear.
“Have you ever had tapas?”
A radiant grin spread across her face. “I love tapas.”
Jo’s radiance only grew in the golden light inside the restaurant. Her gaze wandered around the Spanish decor, the dark flecks in her pale eyes accentuated by her deep red lips. Sitting across the table from her, Felix was enraptured. He was lost. He was hers.
He didn’t demur when she asked him to order for both of them. He picked out all his favorites, fully in Spanish just for the hell of it (and definitely not because he was showing off). They feasted on calamari, patatas bravas, gambas al ajillo, crab cakes, stuffed sweet peppers, and paella Valenciana. They drank wine from Madrid and, for dessert, shared a flan dripping with caramel. They talked and laughed and joked and held hands across the table when they weren’t busy gorging themselves.
It was one of the best nights of Felix’s life; certainly the best since he’d moved to Kansas.
On the drive back, surrounded by dark fields and few streetlights, Jo kept leaning forward in her seat to get a better view of the stars through the windshield. It was all Felix could do to keep his eyes on the road; he loved seeing how enraptured she was by this place in the middle of nowhere.
A few miles outside Ashville, he took her hand and asked, “Shall I take you back to the library for your car?” He kept his tone casual and breezy, despite the desire that had begun to pulse through him as they got closer and closer to home. Jo might have been merely teasing him with those texts of hers, but, oh, how he wanted to make them real.
“If you’d like,” she said, matching the lightness of his voice. Her thumb swept across the back of his hand. “But then I think you should come over. You haven’t seen my place yet or met Merry.”
His fist tightened around the steering wheel. “I’d love to.”
