Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lori frowned at her closet. Hudson was going to be here in less than an hour and she still hadn't picked her outfit. It had been so long since she'd gone out on a date and apparently choosing what to wear wasn't like riding a bicycle. She was out of practice.

She considered calling one of her daughters, then decided against it. They would tease her about going out with her longtime rival. They'd do it with love, of course, but still. Lori wanted to wait until she knew how the date had gone, and if there was likely to be another date on the horizon, before she told everything to Marty and Darla.

Which meant, alas, that she was on her own for outfit selection.

She sifted through her wardrobe again, putting aside anything that was obviously business wear. That was clearly not the effect she wanted tonight. Then she put aside anything too casual. This left her with a handful of dresses. A few were too old to even consider… they needed to be donated, probably, or packed away until trends came back, since they always seemed to return eventually.

But there were two good candidates left in her closet. There was a black, sleeveless dress with wide straps that crossed over one another to create the bodice before coming in at the waist and dropping into a tulip style skirt. It was a dress that Lori had worn to several events, and she knew it looked good on her.

The other option was a seafoam green dress, summery and flowy. She'd bought it on a whim and never worn it, worrying that it made her look like she was trying to be young.

She tried on both outfits… and the answer was immediately clear.

The black dress was great, it was a closet staple for a reason. But the seafoam dress was just right . It didn't look too young… it looked young in a way that Lori felt, tonight, poised to go on a first date with someone she thought she could really come to care for. The green, moreover, did wonderful things for her complexion.

And her figure, if she did say so herself.

She gazed at it in satisfaction until she caught sight of the clock. Oh no! She'd taken so long perfecting her outfit that she'd barely left time for hair and makeup. She quickly ran through her regular makeup routine and then, on impulse, pinned her hair back in a fancy gold barrette that also never got as much use as it deserved. Most of her hair flowed free around her shoulders.

The overall effect was relaxed, fun, and…

Happy.

She looked as happy as she felt.

She was grinning to herself in a very silly way when the doorbell rang.

She slipped quickly into some strappy sandals with a low heel and snatched up her purse on the way to the door.

She opened her front door to find Hudson looking, she had to admit, unbelievably handsome.

He was wearing a dark blue button down that made his silver hair shine in an appealing contrast. He had paired this with light tan slacks, which made him look at once dressed up and summery and cool. And his smile was so, so bright.

"Wow," he said, taking her in. "Lori, you… You look amazing."

She grinned, pretending to preen in order to hide her all too real blush. "Oh, this old thing?" she joked. Then she nodded at him. "You look really great too, Hudson."

"I clean up okay," he agreed with a teasing smile. Then he offered her his arm, like an old-fashioned gentleman. "Shall we?"

She accepted, linking her hand through his elbow. "Yes. Let's."

When they got into the car, an uncharacteristic silence fell over them… and not the comfortable silence they usually enjoyed while working together. This felt, instead, like a nervous, anxious energy was pervading the car. Lori realized she again felt young… but this time not in a good way. She was being silly, she chided herself. She was a grown woman, with grown children!

But she still didn't know what to say.

"So, um, where are we going?" she tried, cringing at how boring this was as a topic. What had happened to her sparkling wit? Her effortless charm? Or even the easy rapport that had sprung up between them over the course of working together?

This was, Lori thought a little sourly, not a good time for those talents to evade her.

"There's a new Spanish restaurant that opened up on the far side of Blueberry Bay that is supposed to have the most amazing paella," Hudson said. His voice too, lacked its usual effortlessness. He paused to check for oncoming traffic around a corner, then kept going. "Wait. Oh no. I didn't ask. You don't have any food allergies, do you?"

Lori shook her head then realized he probably couldn't totally see her, since he was driving.

Really, what was wrong with her tonight?

"Uh, nope," she said.

A long, awkward silence hung in the car. Lori waited until she couldn't take it anymore and then burst out, "Oh my goodness, why are we being so weird?" just as Hudson exclaimed, "Gosh, Lor, you'd think I'd never talked to a pretty woman before!"

Their words crashed over one another and then they stopped again. This time, however, the silence wasn't awkward or long. Instead, only a beat passed before the two were laughing, a little bashfully at first. Before long, however, they found themselves spurred on by each other's amusement until they were laughing so hard that their stomachs hurt.

"We'd better stop or else I'm going to end up crashing the car," Hudson warned playfully. His driving was very steady, but Lori played along anyway, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter that still wanted to break free. When they finally calmed down, the air between them felt lighter.

"Man, we are a pair, huh?" Hudson said as he deftly turned into the parking lot of the restaurant, which, even from this distance, was a charming waterfront building with abundant outside seating draped in the pleasant glow of fairy lights.

"Speak for yourself," Lori said, tossing her hair. "I didn't do anything embarrassing. But you called me ‘pretty.' So embarrassing."

"Watch it, Sims," he warned. "I'm not even started yet. I'll compliment you so hard you'll blush like a tomato."

"Hey, I'm a redhead!" she protested. "It's not fair to tease us about our natural blushing tendencies!"

"Who ever said I was going to play fair?" he asked with a wink that did indeed make Lori blush… although she hoped the setting sun hid the color in her cheeks. No need to encourage him just yet.

She was relieved that their easy banter seemed back for good as they sat at a small corner table on the restaurant's deck, which overlooked the water. The weather was perfect for this. The warmth lingering from the day kept the night breeze from being too chilly, while the breeze stopped the air from feeling too humid.

Their waiter came over quickly, taking their drink orders and explaining that the restaurant specialized in Valencian cuisine, a Mediterranean cuisine known for its rice dishes, like paella, and its citrus. He rattled off a list of specials, which all sounded amazing, but Lori wasn't about to turn down paella, especially not at a restaurant known for the dish.

Hudson ordered the same and they each got a cocktail to accompany their meals. He chose an old fashioned, while Lori ordered a variation of a paloma, made with Valencian oranges. When she took her first sip, her eyes nearly fell out of her head.

"You have to try this," she urged Hudson. "It's incredible."

He took a small sip and then quickly shoved the glass back at her. She was about to ask how he could have such a negative reaction to something so delicious when he said, "Get that thing away from me before I steal your whole glass. I've never been so disappointed with a well-made old fashioned."

He frowned at his drink like it had offended him, and she laughed.

The paella was as good as she had expected, the andouille spiced to perfection and the seafood practically melting on her tongue. It was so delicious that she'd have thought nothing could distract her from her dish, except it turned out that conversation with Hudson was just as tempting. Their conversation flowed easily from topic to topic as they stole bites of their dinners in between responses.

"Okay," Hudson said at one point. "Least favorite thing about being a real estate agent. Go."

"Taxidermy," she said without needing to think about it. "Why have I been staging so many houses where I go to tidy a shelf and then boom! Stuffed animal. And of course, my brain always thinks it's alive, and it's always while I'm on a ladder, and I nearly fall to my death trying to get away from, oh, I don't know, a badger that's actually been dead for decades."

"Is it weird that I've had that exact same experience?" he chortled. "But my least favorite is when some homeowner is trying to convince you that the problem with their house that you can clearly see doesn't actually exist. I had this one guy once who had a huge crack in the wall in his pantry. It wasn't great, but it honestly wasn't terrible. We slap some drywall up there, it's fixed. Except whenever I said, ‘Let's fix the wall,' this guy would say, ‘There's nothing wrong with the wall.' I could see the crack in the wall, Lori! I could see it with my own two eyes!"

His storytelling was so dynamic that she was cracking up again.

"Why do so many clients think we're trying to trick them when we sell their houses? We want the same thing as them! That's how we get paid for our jobs!"

"If I ever figured out the answer to that," Hudson said, shaking his head, "they would make me the king of real estate or something. I don't know. But it would be powerful information."

"It really would," she agreed. "But on a brighter note—what's your favorite thing about real estate?"

"Easy," he said. "It's that grin that the buyers get when you hand them the keys. That ‘oh my gosh, it's really our house!' look."

"Yeah." She sighed. "Me too. In that moment, it's not even really a building. You helped them find their dream, for their home, their business, whatever."

"Never stops being amazing," he added.

Their waiter approached, a smile on his face. "Can I clear away those plates for you?"

Lori looked down, astonished to find that she'd eaten every bite of her meal.

"Wow, yes," she said. "Thank you. It was delicious."

"Not too delicious that I can't offer you a dessert menu, I hope," the waiter said, grinning.

Lori looked excitedly over at Hudson and found him giving her the same look back.

"You bet we're going to want to see those menus," he said to the waiter.

The waiter grinned and pulled them from the side pocket of his apron, promising to come back in a few minutes to get their choices as he removed their empty plates.

"We have a problem," Lori said seriously a few minutes later.

Hudson jerked his head up, looking at her in surprise. "What's wrong?"

She pointed down at her menu with a mischievous grin. "I absolutely cannot decide between the pestinyos , the bunyols , and the figues albardaes . You're going to have to do it for me." She held out the menu with a pretend wince.

He laughed. "You almost got me there. But I have a better solution: we get all three."

"All three?"

He shrugged. "Why not? Life is short, right?"

Who was Lori to argue with that kind of logic?

In the end, she was glad he'd voiced the idea, because each of the desserts was perfect. The pestinyos were delicate and flavored with orange. The bunyols were a heavier dessert, fried dough balls flavored with pumpkin. And the figues albardes were rich, flavored with fig.

Between the two of them, they ate every bite.

When their plates were full and their bill paid, Lori found herself disappointed to think that the evening was already at an end. Fortunately, Hudson seemed like he had one more good idea to go.

"Should we take a quick walk down on the beach, see if we can digest some of that amazing meal before we head back?"

Lori's grin of agreement was strong and bright.

Hudson hadn't been on a first date in a long time, so it was possible that his memory was faulty, but he didn't think so.

He was pretty sure that this was an uncommonly good date.

Things just felt so easy and comfortable with Lori, he noted as they strolled along the cool sand, his hand slipping into hers almost before he'd decided to grasp it. With the warm summer air caressing them and conversation flowing like water, it was hard to imagine why, for all those years, he'd treated her as an enemy. Yes, she was a formidable professional rival, of course. She saw things about their shared profession in a way that felt fresh and inspiring to him, even after so many years on the job.

Why hadn't they overcome their stubbornness long ago?

Even as the thought occurred to him, he dismissed it. There was no use wondering over ‘what-ifs,' and if the past had been different, maybe they would never have gotten to this beach tonight. And this was a perfect moment he didn't want to waste.

The tide was coming in, making the slice of beach narrower and narrower. This cove was more suited for sightseeing than for actually approaching the water. And it only took one wave of chilly Atlantic water surging over their feet for them to decide that a stroll on the sidewalk would be just as nice as one on the sand.

Or rather, it was just as nice… until Lori tripped over an unseen curb, her knees going out from beneath her. Hudson lunged, frankly impressed with his reflexes at his age, and grasped her around the waist, hauling her back up before she could fall to the pavement.

And then, wonderfully and suddenly, she was in his arms. He gazed down at her. She gazed up at him. The moment unspooled between them, stretching, stretching, until the next step seemed almost an inevitability.

He bent down and pressed his lips to hers.

It was a wonderful kiss. It was magical, perfect. It was the kind of kiss that made Hudson think, with a giddy sort of hope, that he would never have another first date again. From the way Lori leaned into him, he wondered if she felt it too.

He was sorry when it ended, but it did have to end, because, well, it was just their first kiss… and they were standing on a public street. He might be joking when he said he was too old for most things, but he really was too old to get carried away with PDA.

Even if he was kissing someone as wonderful as Lori.

He pulled back, certain there were stars in her eyes. For a moment, she looked the same, soft and sweet and happy.

And then things shifted. She tensed, pulling back another step, then another.

He frowned. "Are you… okay?" She'd liked the kiss, hadn't she? She'd seemed to like it. She'd definitely kissed him back. "I didn't… overstep, did I?"

"Oh, no, no. Nope, not at all," she said. He felt a rush of relief, but he didn't relax, because she still seemed tense and awkward. "I just, uh, remembered something important."

"O… kay?" he said. He was very confused.

Lori kept talking quickly, her eyes darting a little wildly. "Yup, something very important. A work thing! Urgent. So I, um, I have to go."

"Wait, what?" Hudson asked. It was Saturday night. They'd just had dinner and had been strolling along the beach. And now she wanted to go work ?

But Lori was nodding so hard she was going to wake up with a stiff neck in the morning.

"Yup, urgent urgent. So I'm just going to go do that." She was backing away, now, like he was some sort of tiger threatening to pounce.

"Lori, I drove you here!"

"No problem," she called, turning away from him now. She waved her cell phone at him over her shoulder. "I'll call a rideshare!"

"Lori, wait—"

But she was moving so quickly that she was already out of earshot, quickly disappearing into the jumble of restaurant-goers spilling out onto the sidewalk, and leaving Hudson behind, completely poleaxed.

What on earth had just happened ?

Part of him wanted to hurry after her, just to make sure she was okay. But another part of him recognized that, for all her excuses, what she'd clearly been running away from was him . Chasing after her would no doubt only make things worse.

He felt like a popped balloon as the elation of the kiss left him deflated and, truth be told, feeling the tiniest bit sorry for himself. As he took himself back to his car, disappointed to be returning to it alone, he wondered how everything had managed to go so wrong so quickly.