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Oozing over me like warm molasses. It made me shiver, despite the warm day. “Fine,” I huffed out.
“Good girl.”
I squeezed my thighs together as my core clenched. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I toyed with my hunk of cake.
Brushing the crumbs from his fingers, Wolfe stood up. Damn. Well, that was fun while it lasted. A little bright spot in my dreary, depressing day.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
My gaze shot to his and even though I knew it was stupid, I looked behind me to see if he was talking to someone standing behind me. “Let’s go?”
“Yep, I’m taking you out for your birthday.”
I gasped.
“I can’t stand to see you crying, all alone on your birthday. It’s fucking depressing. So we’re going out.”
Frowning in confusion, I swiped at the crumbs on my mouth. “Where?”
“Raleigh.”
“What! I can’t go to Raleigh!”
“Why not?”
“It’s two hours away!”
“I’m not expecting you to walk there. We’ll go in my car.”
“What will we do there?”
“Dinner. Maybe a club.”
“A club?”
“Yeah, you know, music, dancing, all that fun stuff. You are old enough to go to a club, aren’t you?”
I gestured to the pile of candles on the table, my head spinning. “I’ve just turned twenty-three. But I’ve never been to a club.”
“Excellent.”
“How is that excellent?”
“I got up this morning and thought about what I was going to do today and almost died from sheer boredom. You change all that. I’m going to take you to Raleigh, take you to dinner and then dancing if you feel like it. I’ll drive you back here afterwards. Come on, Esme. You’re sitting by yourself, crying over your own cake. I’ll infer then that you’re alone on your birthday, for whatever reason, and feeling pretty shitty about it. So come and spend your birthday with me. What have you got to lose?”
Exactly! What did I have to lose? I stared up at Wolfe, considering my options.
A) A long, dismal day back at my trailer. Probably cleaning the bathroom and trying to scrub some of the mildew from the back of the kitchen cupboards. Now that summer had hit. By myself.
B) Go with Wolfe. To wherever he was taking me.
It was a no brainer. “Okay.” I got up, scooping the candles into the shopping bag and the cake back in its box. “Let’s go.”
He gave me a blinding smile that had my breath hitching. “Great.”
My heart thudding at the sudden change of events, I followed Wolfe across the square and down the little alleyway. Back down the tree-lined street I’d driven over just last week.
He turned in at the gate for the house next door to Annabelle’s uncle. “You live here?”