Logan
“What do you want to eat?” I ask as we leave the shop. Kit asked Paul to join us, but I think he saw the pleading in my eyes when I looked in his direction. I need some time alone with her. I need to take her on a date. Technically, she asked me out, but I’d never let her buy dinner for me. Ever.
“I don’t care,” she says with a shrug.
I realize I have no idea what she likes. “Italian?” I point to a restaurant on the corner by my apartment.
She nods, smiling at me.
“I didn’t think you were going to come back.” I hold the door open for her, and she walks into the dark restaurant ahead of me. The waitress leads us to a corner booth, and Kit slides in across from me.
“I shouldn’t have.” She puts her guitar under the table, banging me in the shin with it in the process. “I’m sorry,” she says, wincing. She’s suddenly uncomfortable with me.
Is she sorry for knocking me in the shin or for leaving me this morning? “What did you do today?” I ask.
She makes a face and points toward her outfit. “Playing in the subway.”
“How did it go?”
She shrugs. “It was cold. My butt is still freezing,” she admits. I get an immediate and strong image of me helping warm up her ass. I saw the perfect globe that is her ass cheek this very morning. “What?” she asks.
My thoughts must have played out on my face. “Nothing,” I say. But a grin tugs at the corners of my lips.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, her head tilting to the side.
I shake my head. “My mind was in the gutter, if you must know,” I admit. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Please, go ahead.” I motion for her to keep talking.
“You were thinking about my butt,” she says. And now she’s grinning too.
Heat creeps up my cheeks. She’s so damn pretty.
The waitress comes to the table with menus and lays one in front of each of us. “Welcome,” she says. “Do you want to know our specials?” She blinks at me, trying to catch my eyes. I make it a point not to look at her.
Kit nods in answer to her question. She rattles off some menu items and their prices, and I see Kit reach into her pocket and count her money beneath the table. There’s no fucking way I’m letting her buy dinner.
“What can I get for you to drink?”
Kit arches an eyebrow at me, and I motion from her to me and back so she’ll get me what she’s having. “Root beer?” she asks.
I nod. The waitress leaves us with the two menus. I open mine, and she doesn’t. “Do you know what you want?” I ask.
“What are you having?” She smiles at me.
I open the other menu in front of her and point to the word at the top. “What do you see when you look at that?”
She scrunches up her nose. “I see someone who thinks he can teach me to read.” She closes the menu. “Believe me, better people than you have tried.”
“Who tried?” I ask.
She takes a sip of her root beer through a straw, her lips pursing around it. “A better question would be who didn’t try. I have been poked and prodded and put through special education and been to therapists who thought they could unlock my brain. No one could.”
