62. Skyler

The lighting in the restaurant is moody and inviting. Candle lit.

For being home to one of San Francisco’s top chefs, it’s surprisingly welcoming.

I always thought Terry was beautiful. Blue eyes. Elegant bone structure.

The candlelight makes her glow.

But her hair is the same color as Reese’s. Terry’s hair is straight as a pin.

Reese’s hair curls and twines, wild like a summer storm.

Terry sips her wine, scanning my face with those sharp blue eyes. “I wondered when you’d finally get the guts to ask me out.”

I try to pull myself back in. To focus on the person I’m with.

She laughs at my silence. She’s used to me, knows I don’t always favor statements with a response. One elegant eyebrow arches up. “What took you so long?”

What did take me so long?

Terry is beautiful.

But besides that, she’s sharp and funny and just a little edgy. I clear my throat. “Didn’t want to ruin a good thing, I guess.”

She laughs. “Is dating me going to ruin a good thing?”

I smile reluctantly. “I hope not.”

It’s a risky step, though. One I didn’t choose to take on a whim.

She’s not Reese, that’s true, but I need to get Reese out of my head. She’s not an option.

Even if it weren’t just the distance, she’s more or less engaged to boy wonder. The Christian rockstar.

Reese and I had passion, true enough, but chemistry like that can burn. I don’t think I could walk through the flames again. The next woman needs to be a safe place. Terry is a safe place. She knows me.

My moodiness. She knows about the ups and the downs. About my general lack of conversational skills. And she tolerates me, anyway.

Our server returns, placing almost a dozen small plates in front of us. Artful bites.

She picks at the one in front of her, half foam, half cracker. “How’s Nebraska?”

“Good. We finished harvest a few weeks ago.”

“Harvest.”

She repeats the word with a hint of a smile. “Sometimes, I’m so jealous of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Living out there with all that space. I pay an ungodly rent for a match-box sized apartment. And the traffic. God, the traffic. Maybe I should just take a page from your book and move out to the wilderness.”

“Silver Bend isn’t exactly the wilderness.”

I pause. “But it’s not far off.”

“What’s it like growing up in a small town?”

“Great. And awful.”

I chuckle at her expression. “Everybody is almost family, which is nice, I guess. But it also sucks, because nobody needs that many cousins. There’s no such thing as secrets, but that also means if you need help, you’re not going to be alone.”

“Sounds kind of nice.”

I tilt my head. “Does it?”

Her eyes are warm. “I think so.”

“Would you ever move there?”

The question hangs in the air. Big. Impossible to edge past.

She will know why I’m asking.

I want to know if there’s any point in dating. She knows I won’t move, which means she’d have to come to me.

Her lips tug into a tiny smile. “I’d have to see it first.”

My heart throbs. It’s probably just nerves. Funny, it feels an awful lot like pain. “That’s not a no.”

Her smile is genuine now, broad. “It’s not a no.”

That night, I drop her off at her matchbox sized apartment in a questionable neighborhood and I only walk her to the door. I tell myself I’m only kissing her cheek and not sleeping with her, because I’m trying this new thing where I take it slow.

Reese would be proud of me.

Seems like her dating lessons are wearing off on me.

I’m not such an impossible student, after all.