All I Want for Christmas by Georgia Beers

Author:Georgia Beers [Beers, Georgia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635557657
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2020-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I promise I’m fine.” Toby used the cover of the table to massage her bruised knee. Turned out Hannah had seen the whole ugly scene unfold in the market, and while it was thoughtful when she offered to cancel their date this evening, Toby had been looking forward to seeing her all day. She wasn’t about to let one botched assignment usurp their night. Even if her minor injury had forced her to go with plan B. “The food here is amazing,” she said, hoping to keep the conversation from getting too heavy.

“This place is lovely.” Hannah looked around the quaint Spanish restaurant Toby had selected mainly for its ambiance. “The menu looks amazing,” Hannah said, but her voice harbored hesitation.

Toby felt herself starting to panic. Maybe this was all too much. The romantic dinner, the quiet setting. But no. The last few weeks had always been building up to last night. Their connection was so easy, their chemistry off the charts. And there’d been no weirdness today. In fact, their messages had gotten exponentially flirtier as the day wore on. Until the market debacle. Fuck. It hit her like a heavy weight.

“You want to talk about today, don’t you?”

“Could we?” Hannah placed her menu to the side and looked so intense, Toby wondered how it had taken her so long to realize all Hannah wanted was real conversation. God, she was such an overthinker sometimes. She’d been so busy trying to keep things from getting too serious that she’d gone and made it awkward.

“Of course.”

Hannah drew a lazy circle on the tablecloth. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t on my mind. And it’s not like we need to spend the whole night deconstructing everything. It’s just…I saw you get involved in something—I’m not even sure what, really—and then you got hurt. And I feel like I know you well enough to know you must be processing it all. Why won’t you talk to me about it?”

“You were the first person I thought about when it happened.” Toby blurted out the truth without filtering. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it for a minute. Something about the way it all went down encapsulated the very things she hated about her job. The overt profiling, the massive egos, the quick escalation to aggression. “But this is a date. I didn’t want to be a mood killer.”

“Maybe I’m the crazy one.” Hannah covered her heart, looking completely vulnerable. “But it feels like there could be something real here. Between us.” She shrugged like there was no fighting it. “Let’s just be ourselves. You be you. I’ll be me.” She took a sip of sangria, a signal it was decided. “In my opinion, that means we talk about things. We can start with easy stuff. How’s your knee? I know it’s bothering you.”

“It’s honestly fine.”

“Toby, you were limping the whole way from the subway stop.”

“I was not.” Toby dropped her mouth open pretending to be offended, but Hannah’s look called her bluff.

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