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“Yes. Of course I am. None of this is weird at all.”
It was very weird.
He sighed but then said the last thing she expected. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“No!” she quickly reassured him. “You’re doing great. Better than I expected, actually. I guess I’m having a hard time shifting into pretending to be in a relationship.”
“I’m sure our near accident didn’t help. It’s been a long day.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“But it wasn’t great. Things don’t have to be the worst-case scenario to affect someone. And I feel like I should check on you. It’s what any good boyfriend would do.”
Would her cheeks ever cool? Even when they didn’t have to pretend to be a couple, he was good at finding the right thing to say.
“You’re not wrong . . . about any of it. I guess I just hoped this would go smoother.”
“We’re here in one piece and settled in. I would say things are going well.”
“Are you guys coming?” John asked, opening the door. “I run off of delicious food and I’m on empty right now.”
“Then we definitely need to go,” Amelia said, walking out of the room. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
John groaned. “No idea. They disappeared after saying they were just grabbing something.” He turned toward the back of the condo. “Mom! Dad! You coming?”
Their parents came out of their room only moments later, and they began the short walk to dinner. Twice, Daniel’s hand brushed hers, and she tried and failed to work up the courage to grab his. Hers would feel so small in his much larger ones . . .
“Daniel, I’m so glad you could join us,” her mom said as they got to the sidewalk.
“Me too,” he replied. “I’ve been needing a vacation for a while now.”
“Oh, we all do! I worked in customer service for years and I can’t stress the importance of a break.”
He nodded. His lips pursed and his eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to figure out what to say. Amelia had seen this expression before in meetings that he was told to lead.
“So, how was your drive?” Amelia asked, eager to get the conversation flowing again. Daniel gave her a smile, melting her brain into a puddle of incoherent thoughts about how attractive this man was when he did something as simple as smile. She fought to keep herself composed and focused on the question she’d just asked.
Even if she’d already forgotten what it was.
“Boring,” John said. What was boring again? His job?
Right, their drive.
“Oh, stop.” Her mom rolled her eyes. “It was uneventful. We were able to drive straight here.”
“That’s good,” Amelia said, nodding. “But you guys didn’t have to try to beat us here. We would have been fine had we gotten here first.”
“But we were the ones who were told the new entry code for the door,” she reminded. “Or at least that’s what your dad said. I tried to tell him that we could just text that to you, but I think the rush was actually because your dad was excited to meet Daniel.”
“And be relatively near you on the drive, in case something happened,” her dad added. “Like a near car wreck.”
“Everything was fine.”
“Thanks to your quick thinking,” Daniel added.
Wow, he really wasn’t going to let that go, huh?
“Dad had this idea that your car was going to break down like mine did when I tried to drive myself,” John explained.
