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“In three months, who pays for the big romantic date?”
“We both win, right?”
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“So I owe you a big romantic date and you owe me one.”
“That’s why I’m asking. How do we decide who pays and where we go?”
“Marsie,” he said. However she looked at him made him smile. “We don’t have to limit ourselves to one date. Since we made this bet and we both lost and both won, you can take me someplace awesome and I’ll take you someplace awesome. But that’s only one set of dates. There will be more.”
“Right.” The implications of forever hadn’t occurred to her. She hadn’t needed to worry about one set of dates. They had hundreds, maybe thousands—she’d have to create a set of assumptions and do the calculations—of dates ahead of them.
Suddenly, the pressure was gone. Like with their argument about her algorithm, they didn’t have to be perfect on the first try. They had time to learn, adjust and get it right the next time.
“Ready to go inside now?” he asked, though their hands were still entwined.
“Yes,” she said, not wanting to be the one to let go first.
Like they could read each other’s minds, he squeezed her hand at the same time she squeezed his hand and then both said, “Ow.”
She slipped her hand out of his and turned to the car door. He followed, standing behind her, his hand resting on the small of her back.
Marsie didn’t bother to offer him a drink. She just led him up the stairs and into bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE NEXT COUPLE weeks were a whirlwind of activity, and not just because Jason was back in her life and they were splitting nights in each other’s beds. That week she’d spend lonely and sad, and working on her grant was only the beginning. Marsie was working all the time, and Jason was always there to greet her with dinner, a drink and slippers when she was done with her marathon workdays.
To her surprise, not only was he supporting her through her grueling workdays, but apparently he had also been planning something. After a couple days of getting home at a reasonable hour and not being exhausted, Marsie came home to find Jason there, holding a change of clothes. Her clothes.
“I’m taking you out,” he said, holding up the two hangers.
“I would never wear those two things together.” He was holding a pair of tight, dark red pants and a pink sparkly shirt. There wasn’t a pair of shoes in the world that could bring together those two pieces of clothing, not to mention that she would have to think especially carefully about any jewelry so that she didn’t detract from the effect of the shirt.
He looked at the clothes he was holding and shrugged. “Okay. You have ten minutes to change into what you want to wear for a party. If you’re not ready in ten, that’s okay. I’ll grab you and take you in whatever it is you’re wearing.”
He smiled, a sexy, knowing smile that made her weak at the knees. “Or not wearing.”
She pursed her lips—trying to be upset, but too amused to even fake it very well—and grabbed at the hangers. “Fine. Okay. Where are we going? And did you pick out shoes?”
“Of course I did.” He was faking being affronted about as well as she was faking being upset. He picked up a pair of black heels with chains dangling from the ankles. She’d never worn those heels, not ever. She’d bought them to wear on the night she planned to have sex for the first time with the man she was certain she would marry. But she hadn’t met that man the way she’d expected, and so the shoes had never been out of her closet.
“I don’t know about those,” she said, taking them from his hand at the same time she took the two hangers. “They’re a bit…”
“They’re hot. And you’ll look hot in them.” The heat in his eyes melted her insides. “You’ll look hot in a pair of pajama pants and slippers, too. If you want to wear those to a party, I’ll be there for you.”
She started for her bedroom. “What is this party you keep talking about?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said from behind her on the stairs.
