“I know,” Jase answers. “I was here for the sixteenth, remember?”
As if I could forget. Jase doesn’t know that I forget almost nothing. It’s probably why I can hold on so tight to a grudge.
I was told I could pick a friend to bring for that sweet sixteen dinner and I picked Jase, which my parents and Grey thought was hilarious. But Jase was sweet about it, playfully tugging on my braid and thanking me because this place makes the best steak. I ordered a steak that night, just the way he ordered his.
And then I couldn’t eat it because even a little bit of red on the plate seemed just as bad as if it swam in blood. My brother was the only one that caught on to me sneaking my meat into my napkin and taking it to the restroom so I could flush it.
“Did you run around today asking people for advice for tonight?”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“On planning this date,” I elaborate.
“No. Why?”
“You remembered how much I like it here. Buying me all the books… I mean…”
“On your sixteenth birthday, you said about ten times that it was your favorite restaurant.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you remember I gave you a gift card to come here three or four years ago for that secret Santa party?”
“Right.”
I felt like it was kismet that he’d drawn my name in that Secret Santa draw. I invited him to help me spend the gift card and he laughed it off like I was joking. I wound up bringing Cicely with me.
“And anybody who knows you knows how much you love books. Seeing your bedroom, how stuffed those bookshelves are, the fact that you spend your days surrounded by them… I knew I’d need to build you more than those bookshelves in our place, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Tall ones with one of those rollingBeauty and the Beastladders like you want. I remembered the chair because… because I guess I just remembered it.” He shrugs.
“You remembered me being excited about rolling ladders from a Disney movie?”
Not just any Disney movie.TheDisney movie. A book-loving girl getting the beast of her dreams? I totally identified with Belle.
“Also heard you say more than once how you’d love one of those, how it’s the ultimate home library feature. Though, baby, with how accident-prone you are, gonna insist you just let me climb it when you need a book from the top shelf. You hungry?” he asks.
I’m starving, actually, but I shrug and say, “I could eat.”
He gets out of the truck. So do I.
“You gonna keep fighting me on the chivalry?” he asks.
“Probably,” I say.
His eyebrows jut up. “You gonna keep fighting me in general?”
I raise my own brows. “You expect me to answer that?”
“Hold that thought. I’ll ask again on our third date.”
I roll my eyes. But my heart is beating faster than it should.
36
JASE
“Explain this Alaska job thing to me,” I request.
We’ve ordered our meals and are sitting in a booth, in the corner of the restaurant.