Hit the Wall

I nodded my head towards the chef, who had started to prepare the grill in front of us. “And how does he know what I want to order?”

“I didn’t want them to be out any money for letting me have a table to myself on the busiest night of the week, so I ordered a few different dinners for each of us. This way we can enjoy ourselves without anyone interrupting us. And you get to try a little bit of anything that sounds good to you. It’s a win-win.”

And there he went shocking the hell out of me again. I glanced at the chef’s cart again and realized exactly how much food there was on it. “What about all the leftovers? There’s no way the two of us are going to be able to eat all of that.”

“Ditching leftover food is an easy problem to solve. You can take some back to your roommate, and I’m sure the guys at the house will devour anything I bring back to them. And this way you can have as much of anything you really like as you want.”

I peeked at the grill, where the chef was preparing a gigantic mound of fried rice and eight sets of what looked like a shrimp appetizer of some kind. “You really do mean as much as I want. That’s a ton of food.”

He grinned at me and a slight blush crept up his chiseled cheekbones. “I might have gone a little overboard.”

I reached out and place my hand over his. “No, you went exactly the perfect amount overboard. This was a very cool thing to do, Jackson.”

He nodded before he grabbed his sake and gulped down the rest. “How about more sake?”

“I don’t know. Did you order eight servings of that, too?” I teased him.

“Nah. I thought about it but then I wouldn’t be able to drive you home,” he said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Hell, neither of us would even remember this date if we drank that much.”

“And this is where I should admit to something. I know I’m a bartender, so this will probably shock you, but I hardly ever drink. I would say I make for a cheap date, but you’ve pretty much proven that wrong with all of this.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you can drink all the tea you want.” He poured me a cup and put it by my plate. “You don’t have to finish the sake if you don’t want it.”

“No, I really like how warm it makes me feel,” I giggled.

“We better get some food into you,” he said as he handed my plate to the chef so he could pile some shrimp on it before giving him his own plate. I really liked how it felt when he did small things like that—pouring me drinks and getting me food.

“Delicious,” I declared as I took my first bite. I enjoyed the whole meal, tasting a little bit of anything that caught my eye. He really had ordered some of everything. We had chicken, two different kinds of steak, more shrimp, and lobster to go with the rice and vegetables. The chef made a volcano with an onion that he set on fire and kept doing tricks like tossing shrimp shells into his chef’s hat. It was really entertaining and the food was amazing. It was absolutely the best dinner date I could ever remember having.

“I’m so full,” I said as I rubbed my stomach, trying to get comfortable. I really had eaten too much.

My sweater rode up a little and Jackson’s gaze landed on my bare skin. “Here, let me help with that.” He reached over to move my hand out of the way and replace it with his. His warmth seeped into my skin as he gently rubbed in circles.

“Jackson,” I murmured, lost in the feeling of his touch.

“Kaylie?”

“Yeah,” I said drowsily.

“Ready for the next part of our date?”

My eyes popped open at his question. “Next part?”

“I thought we’d take a little detour on the way back to campus. You game?”

“If your detour is as good as the rest of the night has been, then count me in,” I answered.

The waiter boxed up all the leftovers and put them into a couple bags for us to take. Jackson handed him his credit card and paid for our meal without even glancing at the bill. He carried both bags as he led me out of the restaurant to his truck and helped me inside. A girl really could get used to all this pampering pretty easily. Jackson might have been new to the whole dating thing, but he sure knew what he was doing.

He turned the music on low and switched it to an alternative rock station. The Foo Fighters came on, and I leaned back in my seat to enjoy the music. Jackson drove to the outskirts of town to the lake and pulled off the road onto a dirt path. We drove a few more minutes before coming to a summer cabin. He parked in the driveway and hopped out before I even thought to ask what we were doing here.