Page 27 of Take Me Home

“Whataburger. That place looks like it still has a smoking section.”

The parking lot was riddled with potholes, and the restaurant’s iconic white-and-orange stripes were in desperate need of a power wash.

“The good news is,” Hazel said, climbing out, “soon we won’t be stuck together, and your voodoo won’t work on me anymore.”

Ash wanted to admit he didn’t feelstuckwith her, but his thoughts were derailed at the door to the restaurant by a fluffy tuxedo cat snoozing below aLOST CATsign. The name, Fitzwilliam, was written above a picture of the exact same cat.

“Is that the missing cat?” Hazel asked the pimply teenage boy behind the counter, thumbing over her shoulder.

“Nah,” he said.

“Are you sure? It looks just like the picture.”

“That’s just Toast.”

Hazel shot Ash one of the same private, amused glances she’d cast his way in the diner last night.

Her comment about their impending separation weighed on him as they ordered and settled into a corner booth. He’d been focused on getting home, hadn’t thought beyond the drive, but now it hit him. Once they arrived, this new, cozy bubble forming around them would pop. At the café, in their regular life, he saw her nearly every day. And now that they’d had real conversations, now that he knew what her body felt like pressed against his,nowit wouldn’t be enough to pour her coffee and get a rise out of her over that stupid chair. A week with no contact at all? He didn’t like it.

He gestured for her phone on the table. “Let me give you my number. We still haven’t nailed down when we’re leaving.”

She tapped in her passcode but held on to it, side-eyeing him. “Day after Christmas. Early, preferably.”

“Seriously? That soon?”

She sighed, finally handing her phone over. “I have things to do, next semester to prepare for. You knew I wouldn’t want to hang around Lockett Prairie for the entire break. Don’t you have to work?”

“Not until the twenty-ninth. We could leave on the twenty-eighth.”

Her gaze flitted to the door, where a trucker stomped in with the tuxedo cat tucked under his beefy arm. “Found your cat,” he announced.

“Every freaking day,” the teenager grumbled.

Ash slid Hazel’s phone back to her, smiling at her little laugh. “This is why we should have each other’s number,” he pointed out. “We can figure it out later.”

“Fine.” She stole one of his onion rings, as though it were payment for her dropping the subject.

“Help yourself,” he deadpanned.

She bit into it, holding his gaze defiantly. Flaky breading caught on her lower lip. His fingers twitched, moving to brush it away, but he stopped himself. She popped the last bite into her mouth, and then her eyes fell to his milkshake.

Ash pulled the cup to the edge of the table. “Nuh-uh. You should have gotten your own.”

“I don’t want a whole one.”

She reached slowly across the table, eyes dancing playfully, daring him to stop her. He didn’t, only said as she stole his cup, “You know this isn’t normal dining behavior.”

With a shrug, she lowered her lips to the straw, never breaking her gaze. He knew she was just seeing what she could get away with. And as she smacked her lips in exaggerated satisfaction, he worried the answer waseverything.

—

“What do you evendoat home?” Hazel wanted to know later, as they neared Lockett Prairie.

“Hang out with my family. See friends. Eat.”

“But don’t you feel different?” She was tapping the steering wheel, all nervous energy.

“Different how?”