Before she could say anything, the sound of the door sensor caught her attention. When she saw Theo standing there, staring at her with eyes so intense that she couldn’t breathe, she decided she didn’t need to finish her shift after all. She’d found her distraction from her multitude of duties and worries, and he was stretching the sleeves of his worn T-shirt in a truly beautiful way.
All she could do was stare as he got closer and closer, his long strides eating up the distance between them. In no time at all, he’d reached her frozen form.
“Hey.”
She swallowed. “Hey.” It somehow came out both raspy and squeaky, and she tried not to wince.
“How are you?”
Although she rolled her eyes just a tiny bit, his concern still made her smile. “As I said yesterday afternoon, and last night when you called, and later last night, when I brought coffee out to the nice officer you had watching my house during your shift and he asked me how I was, and this morning when you asked…was it six times or seven?” When he didn’t answer, just frowned at her instead, she continued. “I’m fine. Better than fine. Everyone’s okay, so we’re wonderful. The kids are complaining that I’m hugging them too much, but I told them they’re just going to have to suck it up.”
He was quiet for a moment, studying her as if doing a visual health check, before he gave her a tiny smile back. “You heading home soon?”
There was a weight to his words. Instead of being merely a simple question, it was heavy and sexy and nerve-racking, all at the same time. Her throat went dry, and she could only manage to nod.
“When?” Again, he managed to imbue that one word with so much more.
“Megan told me to leave.” When he cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows drawing together as if puzzled, she clarified, “Um…now.”
“Want to go?”
Did she? Did she want to go and do all those wonderful and terrifying things his husky tone suggested? “Oh yes.”
His smile came then. Unlike Megan’s, Theo’s smile was honest and gorgeous and made her stop breathing. “Let’s go then.”
He reached out and twined his fingers in hers. Between his grin and the hand-holding, Jules was lucky to retain enough presence of mind to grunt out an affirmative sound. That’s all she needed, though, before he was tugging her out the door and into the blinding sun.
The light shocked some sense back into her. It wasn’t quite enough to make her tell Theo to have a nice day and find his own ride home, but it was enough to remind her that she needed to grab her stuff. She squeezed his fingers and tugged her hand free.
His expression blanked. It startled her, how all the hope and happiness and anticipation could slip away so quickly, leaving this mask in its place. Jules felt an intense urge to take back the motion, to put her hand in his again and leave it that way forever. The only problem with that idea was she couldn’t reverse time, and also, she needed her stuff. They wouldn’t get very far without her car keys.
“I’ll be right back. I just have to grab my things.” Turning away while she still had the willpower, she hurried to the back, where she’d put her wallet, silenced phone, and keys in one of the kitchen nooks before she’d started her shift. Her stuff was tucked back far enough in the highest one that no one could see that they were there. As her fingers fumbled for her possessions, she frowned.
Had she placed them so far back that morning? It’d been early—before five—when she’d arrived, so she probably hadn’t been completely conscious. Shaking off her unease, she pulled her wallet and keys toward her, and then hopped to be able to reach her phone, which had been pushed back the farthest. Quickly, she flipped open her wallet to check that her Julie Jackson ID and the small amount of cash was still there, and her heart settled when she saw that everything was in place. Relieved, she pulled off her apron and tossed it into the dirty laundry bin. Calling out her good-byes to Vicki and Megan, she rushed toward the front, embarrassingly eager to return to the cop waiting for her.
As she hurried through the diner, her gaze fixed on Theo’s silhouetted form outlined through the door glass, the moment of oddness slipped from her mind. Everything inside her was fixed on the man standing right outside the diner.
He held open the door for her, and she slipped past him into the sunshine. Although he let the door swing shut behind them, his feet didn’t move. Instead, he stayed in place, his gaze locked on hers with an intensity that put goose bumps on her arms. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. If he kept staring at her with those hungry eyes, she was going to jump on him in the diner parking lot and give Megan, the customers, and any passersby a show.