Page 91 of Enticing Her Love

“A few weeks, maybe. But we were in seventh grade, and dating meant hanging out with our friends and holding hands.”

“Sounds like he held more than your hand,” he teased. “Lucky kid. I’d’ve loved to have been your first kiss.”

“Why? I wasn’t very good at it.”

“I wasn’t either. We could’ve learned together.” That earned a dreamy smile.

As he turned the page, a paper slipped out. He picked it up, taking in the printed picture of a blue-footed booby with one blue foot and one red foot. The bird was caught midstride, with the blue foot up in the air, leaning to one side as if it were tipsy, its pointy beak leading the way. He recognized the picture.

“Oh my gosh, that’s my blue-footed booby! I love that picture. I did a report on them in seventh grade, and when I read it to the class, I went all out. I wore a white sweater with brown sleeves, because the bird had a white body and brown wings, and I painted my toenails red on one foot and blue on the other.”

“Always going the extra mile. Where did you get this?”

“I don’t know. Online somewhere. I probably cited it in the report. Why?”

“My mother took it. It was published in a nature magazine.”

Her eyes widened. “No way.”

“I’ll show you.” He grabbed his phone from the coffee table and navigated to his mother’s website, where he searched blue-footed booby and showed her the picture, along with information about where it had been published.

“That’s crazy. Tell your mother I said thank you. I got an A on that paper, and I swear it was because I loved that picture so much.”

He was starting to think that maybe his and Sutton’s paths had been fated to cross. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

She was eyeing his salmon with the same expression she’d worn ten minutes ago when she’d been salivating over his tuna roll and had plucked a piece off his plate and replaced it with a piece of eel she didn’t care for.

“Would you like a piece of salmon?”

“Do you mind? It looks delicious.”

“Babe, I like sharing food with you. You don’t have to ask. Just take what you want.” He moved his plate closer to her.

“In that case.” She leaned in and kissed him. “You just got another point in the pro column for sharing your food.”

He’d take every tally he could.

She popped a piece of salmon into her mouth and motioned to her plate. “Take whatever you want.”

He cocked a grin.

She laughed. “You are insatiable.”

“Only for you, babe.” He leaned in for a kiss.

They finished eating as they looked through the rest of the yearbook and read what her friends had written in it. About half of them mentioned Sutton’s pros and cons lists. “Did young Sutton make a really bad decision or something?”

“No. Why?”

“I’m just curious about why you started making pros and cons lists.”

“They’ve just always been my thing. I don’t know why I started, but after Jock and Archer had their falling-out, I was glad I made them and made my big decisions based on facts and not solely on emotions like they did.”

“That seems like a good way to approach problems, when it’s feasible.”

“It’s always feasible.”

“Is it?” He arched a brow. “You’re with me, and I’m pretty sure that’s an emotional decision, because the facts are stacked up against us.”