She usually just got a vanilla cone because the split was way too much for one person. But when Dylan had suggested they share the split, it hit her that she wasn’t alone anymore. At least not for as long as whatever they were doing together lasted. Certainly as long as it took her to write the magazine story, she figured. And after? Well…she’d learned a year and a half ago that no matter how much you wanted to predict the future, there were some things you simply couldn’t plan for.
Fun, she reminded herself yet again. That’s all this was. All it needed to be.
Seeing that Dylan had Mason’s sticky face well in hand with the container of wet wipes he’d found at the bottom of the stroller, she sat on his other side. When he’d finished cleaning Mason up, she lifted her lemonade.
“Congratulations on your newest creation.” He clinked his cup against hers, and then she leaned over to kiss him softly, as natural a move as it had been to walk down the street from the park to the ice cream shop with her baby playing happily in his stroller in front of them.
“Speaking of creations, how’s your article going?”
“Good.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That was the least good-sounding good I’ve ever heard.”
She dug her spoon into the strawberry scoop at the end of the dish and amended her reply to, “I did so much research before I began to interview you and you’ve given me so much great stuff…it should be coming together much more quickly than it is.”
“We’ve got to get you out in one of my boats. I promise you, that will change everything.”
Her heart skittered at the suggestion, because that was exactly what she was afraid would happen if she sailed with Dylan. That everything would change. That she’d lose hold of her “just having fun” perspective. That she’d start to want more than pleasure and laughter. And that she’d only be setting up herself and Mason for a huge fall.
“I’ll be back from Australia on the Saturday after next, so why don’t we schedule our sail for the following Sunday? That way you’ll still have nearly a week to polish up your story if you need to.”
Nearly two weeks was enough time to mentally prepare herself for their sail. It had to be. “Okay, I’ll book a babysitter.”
“You do realize that my mother was serious when she offered to watch Mason anytime you needed her to, don’t you?”
“Claudia is very sweet and generous, and Mason obviously loved playing with her, but—”
“It will make her day knowing she’ll get to see him again.”
When he put it that way, how could she keep arguing? “My mother would have felt the same way.” It was a beautiful sunny day, and she was eating ice cream with her perfect son and the gorgeous man she was having “fun” with. She shouldn’t feel sad. Still, she’d never figured out how to shake her sorrow that both her parents were gone.
Obviously, Dylan sensed it, because he put his hand over hers and said, “They see him, Grace. And you, too, the daughter they’ve always been so proud of. Watching you raise Mason…I know they’re prouder of you than ever.”
The sun, the ice cream, the smile on her son’s face, Dylan’s hand over hers—all helped her hold the tears at bay. “I had a friend in high school who came from a big family, and she hated it. Hated the lack of privacy. Hated that someone was always into her things. My parents tried for more kids, but my mother couldn’t...” No, she absolutely refused to ruin their afternoon by breaking down. She focused instead on slicing off a piece of banana from the split and feeding it to Mason between his own licks of sorbet. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re very lucky to have such a close family.”
“I agree,” he said. “Although I’m a little pissed off at my brother Adam right now.”
“Why? I thought he helped you with the boat yesterday.”
“He did, but only after he walked in on us, which meant you put your clothes on long before I was ready.” She was blushing by the time he added, “And I was planning to ask you on our first official date for tomorrow night, but it turns out that Adam needs the two of us to go with him to a swanky cocktail party at the old Maritime Museum, put on by the board members. They’re thinking of tearing it down and putting up a modern glass and steel showcase. He wants us to help talk them out of that and into letting him get his hands on it to restore the building.”
“I’m glad he wants to fight to save the historic building. It’s a truly beautiful one. And it makes perfect sense that he’d want you there. But why would he want me to come?”
“You’re smart. You’re beautiful. And I’m guessing that, from the way you research the topics that you write about, you already know more about the history of Seattle sailing than anyone on the museum’s board.” He leaned forward to lick a drop of ice cream from her lips. “Come with me tomorrow night, Grace. We’ll do the rounds for my brother as fast as we can, then sneak off and have our own private night on the town without anyone from my family around this time.”
The brush of his tongue against her sensitive skin had knocked her brain cells off-balance, far enough that she couldn’t quite focus on what her answer to his question should be.
“Say yes,” he murmured against her lips as he leaned in again to kiss her this time.
Spinning even faster now, she said, “You’re doing this on purpose. Making it hard for me to think.”
He nuzzled her earlobe. “Is it working?”
“Almost.”
But what he was asking her was too important to be decided on a dizzy, aroused whim.
A date.
She hadn’t been on one of those in a really long time. Dinner at his parents’ house had been an interview, though it had ended with a kiss. And the aquarium hadn’t started as a date, either, though it had ended with much more than just one kiss. Even this trip to the ice cream store could simply have been two friends and a baby out for an afternoon break. A fun break for sun and sugar in the middle of the day. Friends with benefits, but still nothing official. Not a date that could potentially lead to so much more.
“Tell me I’m going too fast, Grace, and I swear I’ll figure out a way to back off and give you more space.”
It should have been exactly the right thing for him to say. But she was shocked to realize that the thought of Dylan backing off had her gut clenching far tighter than did the risk of dating him.