“We could have gone to a sandwich place.” I follow his example in unwrapping the silverware and then placing the napkin in my lap. Then a guy comes around with a pitcher of water, filling up the glasses next to our plates. I quietly tell him thank you and his lips turn slightly.

“It’s Saturday. I don’t have a showing tonight. It’s a leisurely day. Try the Chicken Fajita salad; it’s Jessa’s favorite.” The thought that he brings Jessa here, too, puts me to ease that he’s not thinking a fancy lunch means I’ll fancy him later. Not that he seems to flash that type of guy, but where I come from, not a lot of guys do nice things for girls without an expectation of more. Dex may be the only one I know.

A waiter greets us and spouts off the specials with ingredients I’ve never heard of and positive I can’t pronounce. I order the Fajita salad with the house dressing, and Ryland orders a buffalo chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries.

“Are you a student?” he tries to lure me into conversation while we wait for our food.

“No. I had been taking a few classes at a community college, but I recently moved here.” I want to smack myself on the forehead for divulging unnecessary information. Sometimes being an open book isn’t the best.

His head slowly moves up and down, I assume absorbing the fact that he hired a trashy girl with no education. “I dropped out. Went for a few years, got into an argument with my parents over my love for art,” he reveals, as though he’s letting me know he doesn’t care if I’m on my way to a degree or not.

“What did they want you to do?”

He stares up at the ceiling, “Lawyer, doctor, psychologist. Any job that gave you those extra letters after the name.” He makes eye contact with me.

“Were your parents those? I mean, is that why they wanted you to become one?”

He chuckles. “No. My dad works in a factory and my mom’s a cashier at a grocery store. It’s the classic case of wanting more for your children. They worked their asses off to send me, their only child, to college, and I failed them when I wanted to pursue art instead of something more ‘collegiate’.” He raises his fingers up in air quotes.

“I can understand that. I want my kids to be so much more than me,” I blurt out, wishing I could take that back. I’m devaluing myself in front of my boss.

“I’m lucky. When I dropped out to not ‘waste my parents money’, an art teacher I had, started teaching me after hours. She saw some sort of potential in me and wanted to be my mentor. I opened my gallery four years ago,” he admits.

“How old are you?” I inch forward, showing an eagerness for the answer.

He chuckles. “I’ll spare you the guessing game. I’m thirty-two.”

“Oh,” I say, and he cocks his head to the side.

“Younger or older? Do I dare ask?”

“Younger,” I answer, and he laughs.

“Good. Like you’d say older. I have to keep reminding myself you’re my employee.” He shakes his head with his smile getting wider.

“No … really, I would have thought younger,” I plea to convince him, but he waves his hand.

“I’d ask you how old you are, but my mom told me never to ask a woman her age.” He raises both eyebrows, as though he won’t ask but he’s curious.

“Twenty-two,” I answer honestly because he’ll know as soon as I finish filling out the paperwork he gave me for employment.

His head moves up and down slowly, and, as the lull happens in our conversation, our meals arrive. We both eat, minimally talking here or there, mostly about the food’s preparation and tastiness.

Wiping my mouth, I place the napkin on the table when I finish, and he does the same. Raising his hand slightly so that the waiter comes over, and he hands him his credit card without ever looking at the bill.

“Let me.” I reach down to retrieve my purse.

“You’re my employee. I pay for lunches when we go out,” he says, and I happily accept because if memory serves, the salad was fifteen dollars alone.

“Thank you,” I graciously accept.

“You’re very nice company, Chrissy.” He positions his elbows on either end of the chair, linking his fingers together while he studies the river out the window. “Did you want to go to the hospital now?” He twists his head my way again.

“Okay,” I answer.

We stand up, and he places his hand on the small of my back to nudge me forward to the door. Walking the couple blocks to his car, I’m surprised to find it’s an SUV that beeps open when he clicks his remote. Opening the door for me, I climb in. I quickly snoop around before he joins me, finding his golf shoes behind the driver’s seat with a pair of socks shoved inside. He walks behind the SUV to the driver’s side, and as he turns the key in the ignition, his head shifts my way. “By the way, you’re off the clock now.”

“Oh … okay,” I stutter, wondering if he’s just making it clear that I’m not being paid from this point forward, or that I don’t have to go back to the gallery after. I don’t ask any questions, and he doesn’t divulge any more information.

Sam: Coming in at twelve fifteen. Pick us up?

FUCK, THE LAST thing I want is to see Sam right now. But how on earth do I leave her and her parents at the airport? Damn Jessa for having this baby early. Grant was supposed to pick them up today, so they’d all be here this week when she had the baby. That’s another thing, how did I let it slip my mind that Sam was coming to town today? Chrissy, that’s how, I think to myself.

My truck pulls up by arrivals, and the Hamiltons are waiting at the curb with their luggage. I open my tailgate and Mr. Hamilton is the first to greet me.

“Thank you for picking us up, Dex,” Mr. Hamilton says, and I grab his bag from his hands, lifting it into the truck bed. Spotting my sweatshirt, a vision of Chrissy and I triggers to life.

“No problem,” I say, shaking my head to rid it of Chrissy.

“Tell me, how cute is my granddaughter?” Mrs. Hamilton joins shortly after, smiling widely.

“She’s pretty darn adorable,” I respond before she wraps her arms around my neck, squeezing me into a hug.

“Thank you, Dex,” she says, and I roll her suitcase over and shove it in the back alongside her husband’s.

“You’re welcome.” I reach in and move the bag with the blanket to make room for Sam’s. A light scent of Chrissy’s fruity smelling shampoo floats out and hits me square in the nostrils, flickering our almost kiss to the forefront of everything else. She and I with our backs against the window of the truck, her legs pressed against mine, and her hot breath tickling my neck.

“Dex!” Sam screams and jumps into my unexpected arms. I’m able to catch her at the last minute, and she crushes me with a tight hug.

“Hey, Sam,” I say, and when I place her feet back on the ground, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton are smiling our way as though they enjoy seeing us together.

With her arms still around me, she moves her lips to my ear. “God I’m so wet, I want you now,” she whispers, and I hate to admit it, but I have to shift slightly due to the excitement she evokes with her words. Guilt rises in me.

I don’t respond, and she pushes back, her hands on my upper arms. Silently studying me for a few seconds and then she steps back and turns around. “Let’s go, I want to see my niece,” she hollers behind her, making her parents laugh.

The ride to the hospital is mostly Sam talking to Jessa on the phone and relaying all the information to their parents. Not sure why they have a need to do this now when we’re only forty-five minutes from Western. Sam doesn’t touch me or say much. It could be because her parents don’t know much about our relationship, or lack of one I should say. She takes it upon herself to change the radio station, though. From my usual rock to her current hit preference, which irritates me, but I chalk it up to Chrissy invading my brain.