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“You are so great with the kids.” I noticed that Sam tightened his arms around my waist. It was barely perceptible, but I’d felt it. “They really love you.”
“Thanks, I love them too.”
“I hope you don’t mind me telling you, you look beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you.” I responded, wondering where this was going. Tim had always been friendly with me, but I’d never got the impression that he was interested in me in the slightest.
“So, I was wondering if you might want to grab dinner sometime?”
Okay, I guess I was wrong. He was interested. Sam was tall, in shape, had a great job, and was an incredible father. From what I’d seen he got along with his ex-wife, Jill, which told me a lot about his character. Neither of them had a bad word to say about one another. The relationship hadn’t worked out but the two remained friends for Sam and their younger daughter Christina.
He was also funny, smart, and kind.
He was everything I wanted to find in a partner.
Except he wasn’t Cash.
I searched my brain for the correct vague response. Cash and I definitely were not at the change-our-social-media-status-to-in-a-relationship phase. At best our relationship status had moved from friends to it’s-complicated.
“Um, I’m sort of…seeing someone.”
“Oh.” I could see that my news had come as a surprise to him. Maybe it wasn’t around the entire party after all. “I didn’t know that. Well, whoever he is, he’s a lucky man and I hope he knows that.”
I grinned, unsure of how to accept that compliment.
The song ended and I my arms fell to my side. “Thanks for the dance, and risking life and limb,” I joked.
Tim dipped his chin the way I’d noticed a lot of men from the south did. “Anytime.”
I tried not to make it too obvious that I was scanning the crowd hoping that I’d have a Cash sighting as I walked across the dance floor toward the dessert table. If I couldn’t dance with the man that I wanted to dance with I could at least eat chocolate. I was just about to step off the wooden platform when I felt a hand wrap around my wrist.
My eyes closed as tingles spread up my arm. I knew that touch. It was a touch I’d been craving all day.
When I opened my eyes Cash was standing in front of me. Without saying a word, he wrapped one arm around my waist and held my hand with the other. I melted against him as I rested my head on his chest. His heart pounded beneath my cheek as we swayed to the music beneath the starry night. I closed my eyes, just wanting to feel this moment without the distractions of everyone around us.
“You look so beautiful tonight.” Cash whispered against the top of my head.
My heart sang with joy at his words. It was strange how different it was hearing him say that he thought I looked beautiful as opposed to Miss Shaw or Clyde, or even Tim. I absorbed his words into the marrow of my being.
We hadn’t even made it two bars into the song before he asked, “Did Tim ask you out.”
Cash might have phrased the comment as a question, but it was definitely a statement, one he knew the answer to.
Instead of answering, I posed a query of my own. “How did you know he asked me out?”
“He’s been talking about you all night. Saying how amazing you are with his kid. What an incredible mom and wife he thinks you’ll be. How talented you are. How sweet you are. How kind, funny, and smart you are. How beautiful you are inside and out. How hot and sexy you look tonight in that dress.”
“He said all that?” That didn’t really sound like Tim, but then I guess I’d never had any conversations with him that hadn’t been focused on his son before tonight.
“Not exactly, but I know that’s what he meant.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said you’re really great with Sam and that he was thinking of asking you to dinner. But I know how to read between the lines.”
I chuckled as I leaned my head back against him.
“Or maybe I was just projecting how I feel about you.”
