I settled on my bed, propping up my pillows to prepare myself for a bunch of reading for medieval European history, and then I had a bunch of notes to review for French on the subjunctive. Gag me. I was going to do the French first since it was the suckiest. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the country, but conjugating verbs wasn’t my activity of choice.
Hunter came back with my no-fire-required s’mores, which were made with Nutella, Fluff and graham crackers. He also had two glasses of iced tea.
“Here you go, Miss Caldwell. Happy studying.”
“Thank you, Mr. Zaccadelli. Same to you.”
We retired to our separate beds and got to work. Our desks were crammed so tight under our beds that you couldn’t sit comfortably. Bed studying was much preferable.
The only sound was the turn of a page, the scratch of a pen and our breathing. Every now and then I’d feel Hunter’s eyes on me and I’d look up only to meet those intense blue eyes. I always looked away first.
I finished what I wanted to do for French and got started on reading about medieval clothing. It was fascinating, but not as interesting as watching Hunter study his boring economics books. Yum.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“Not for very long. I’m admiring your sexy brain.”
“Go ahead. I don’t mind. I do it enough to you.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“If you don’t like it, I’ll stop. You just say the word about anything and I’ll stop.”
“You don’t have to stop.”
“Okay then,” he said.
We worked for a little while longer, until my eyes were crossing. The lack of sleep the night before wasn’t really helping with my attempt to cram a bunch of information into my brain.
“I’m done,” I said, closing my book.
“Me too. I like economics, but I like you more.”
“I should hope so.”
“You can shower first. I know it takes your hair longer to dry.”
“This is true.” His dried in about five seconds.
I grabbed some clothes and hopped in the shower, singing Taylor Swift as loud as I wanted, knowing Hunter could hear me through the door.
I shaved extra careful, because if we were going someplace fancy, he was going to make me wear a dress. I wiped off the steamy mirror and checked my nak*d self out, turning from side to side. Meh. Nothing special, but nothing hideous either. Hunter didn’t seem to care, but he hadn’t seen all of me either.
The closest I’d been to nak*d was a tank top and booty shorts. He’d never seen my stomach, and I was pretty sure he was still unaware of my belly ring. I’d managed to keep that little secret for myself.
I slipped on a robe and padded back to our room, drying my hair with a towel.
“Cruel, that robe is cruel,” he said, looking up from the book I’d bought with Megan at our last mall trip.
“Why?”
“Because it covers everything up.”
“Exactly. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
He shook his head and grabbed his shower stuff. I’d never told him, but sometimes when he wasn’t around, I’d open the top of his body wash and smell it, which was weird. He wouldn’t do anything that creepy.
As I waited for him to come back, I scrunched my hair up so it would dry better and kind of wavy. I’d recently seen this cool twist idea online that I wanted to try. Hunter came back to find me jamming bobby pins in my hair.
“What are you doing?” He only had a towel on. Of course. He stood behind me and reached for my hair.
“What are you doing?” I ducked away from his meddling hands. “This took ten minutes to get like this.”
“Wear it down. It looks better down.”
“I’ll wear it however I want.”
“Okay,” he said, turning away, but stopped and reached out to tug a little piece out so it framed my face. “There. Perfect.”
I studied the effect in the mirror and sighed. The updo was pretty, but it wasn’t me. It looked like me dressing up as a lawyer for Halloween. I was never going to be able to find all the pins.
“Okay, you win. Give me a hand.” Hunter and I spent the next ten minutes rooting though my thick hair to find all the pins. Our hands kept bumping into one another.
“Do you do some special girly hair treatment?”
“No, why?”
He removed his hands and stepped back. We were still wary around each other after the blowup.
“Because you’ve got amazing hair.”
“Good genes, I guess.” I did a mayonnaise treatment every now and then, but I only did it when I knew he wasn’t going to be around. I didn’t care if he saw me flipping my retainer, but beauty treatments were personal.
“There. I think that’s the last one,” I said. My hair tumbled around my shoulders. I fluffed it and called it good.
“That’s what I like to see. Natural. I’m going to get un-naked, so you might want to stay turned around. Unless you want to give me a hand…”
“No, I’m good. I’m going to go, um, brush my teeth?” It sounded like a question.
“Have fun with that.”
I did end up brushing my teeth and came back when I was sure Hunter had enough time to be clothed.
“Wow,” I said. He was wearing a black button up with khakis and even a pair of dress shoes. Where the hell had those come from? I’d never seen them.
“I have my secrets too, Miss Caldwell.”
“You look very nice, Mr. Zaccadelli.”
“Yours is waiting on your bed.”
He’d picked out a black cocktail dress that I’d bought on sale on a crazy whim because Megan had told me every girl needed a little black dress.
“I thought it would look good on you. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”
“No, no. I like it. I’ve just never had a place to wear it.”
“Now you do.”
“I’m gonna go get ready,” I said, and he left.
I locked the door before I slipped the dress on. It was slinky and fell just short of my knees, but came up high on my neck in the front. It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. I found a necklace of black beads and some matching earrings that I’d borrowed from Tawny and never returned. By the time Hunter came back, I was putting on mascara.
“Don’t poke yourself in the eye.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“Okay, okay.” He watched me for a moment and then left, probably to give me some more privacy. Good boy.
I was just about ready when he knocked on the door.
“Are you ready, Miss Caldwell?”
“Yes I am, Mr. Zaccadelli. You may escort me now.”
He opened the door and even though he’d seen me before, his eyes still popped.
“Gorgeous.”
“Thank you.”
“Shall we?” He held out his arm. I took it and we left.
“Where’s Darah?” I asked.
“She had to work.”
“Oh. She didn’t say good-bye.”
Hunter shrugged. Huh.
He did all the things he was supposed to do, the door-opening, and the escorting and such. The feminist in me balked at the idea that I couldn’t open a door, but it was nice not to have to do those things for one night. Letting Hunter pull out my chair for one night wasn’t going to set the women’s liberation movement backward. I hoped.
“You’re in charge, Missy. I see that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“It’s not a sin to let me open a door for you. I know you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself.”
“Who said it was?”
“Okay, then.”
The restaurant, The Broadway Public House, was in a brick building in downtown Bangor, a few minutes away from the college. Somehow Hunter found a parking spot for his Pontiac Sunfire right next to the restaurant.
“I’m lucky,” he said as he opened the door for me.
The restaurant was in a strip of brick buildings that went all the way down the main street, with an old brick mill on the end.
It was all white linen and candlelight and French things on the menu. Thank goodness I knew enough of that to know what was what.
The waiter had an accent, which probably meant his family was French Canadian, and had just come over the border. We ordered hors d’oeuvres of French bread and a goat cheese dip and mozzarella, basil and tomato skewers in a balsamic sauce.
We didn’t want to risk the fake ID’s so we both got sparkling water.
When it came time to order, I went with the pesto fettuccini with garlic bread, and then it was Hunter’s turn.
“Peanut butter and Jelly with a side of the asparagus.” The waiter gaped at him for a second, but wrote it down.
“What type of jelly would you like?”
“Strawberry.” The waiter wrote it down and left, shaking his head a little.
“We come to this fancy restaurant and you order PB and J?”
He shrugged, unfazed that the waiter was probably telling the entire kitchen about the crazy guy who had ordered peanut butter and jelly.
“I’ve never eaten here, so I don’t know what’s good. Peanut butter and jelly is always good. You can’t screw that up. Peanut butter and jelly has always been there for me and is one of the constants in my life. Peanut butter and jelly has never done me wrong. It’s my favorite.” His eyes bored into me as he said it, and I had the feeling we weren’t talking about a sandwich.
“Should I leave you two alone when it gets here? Sounds like you don’t need me.”
“I might be projecting my views of someone else onto the sandwich.”
“Just a little.”
The waiter had composed himself by the time he brought our dinner out. They’d done what they could in the kitchen to make the sandwich look fancy, but really, it was still a PB and J. It looked silly sitting on the plate with parsley on the side and some sort of drizzle around the edge of the plate.
“I propose a toast,” Hunter said, raising his glass. I raised mine as well. “To peanut butter and jelly. My favorite sandwich.”
“PB and J,” I said, and we clinked our glasses. Some of the other diners gave us weird looks, but I ignored them. They just didn’t understand the awesomeness of PB and J.
“You want a bite?” Hunter said, holding up his sandwich. One woman looked absolutely horrified that he’d just held up his sandwich for me to take a bite.
I leaned over and took a bite. Damn. That was good. The peanut butter had to be organic, and it had just the right amount of crunch. The jelly was also clearly homemade. Yum.
“You want a bite of mine?” I fed him a bite of my amazing pasta.
“Not as good as mine.”
“Whatever. Eat your sandwich, Mr. Zaccadelli.”
“Yes, Miss Caldwell.”
We chewed some more, and I soaked in the quiet ambience of the restaurant. Soft piano music floated from one corner where a professional played, and the clink of china added to the cozy feel. It was definitely a nice place, and I did feel a little out of place.