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waited.
    The kitchen was my favorite room in the
house, with slate floors, dark cabinets, and black appliances.
There was a small island in the center that had a butcher block top
and wheels on the bottom. The base of the island I painted a deep
plum color, and it had a shelf where I kept some pots and kitchen
items stacked neatly.
    Against the wall was a single French
door that led out onto a private covered patio. Well, the realtor
called it private, but my neighbors had one just like it on either
side, so if they were out at the same time I was, there really
wasn’t any privacy.
    The microwave dinged and I pulled out
the steaming mug, dunked the teabag inside, and added a generous
dollop of honey. The first sip of hot tea was always the
best.
    I sighed as the warm sweetness traveled
down my throat. I took my mug and left the kitchen, going back out
into the living room, and headed to the stairs. Just as my foot hit
the bottom step, the doorbell rang frantically.
    I laughed and pulled it open. “That was
fast,” I said as Dee pushed her way inside.
    “ Are you kidding!? You said
the word date. I broke every speed law to get over
here.”
    “ Don’t let Blue hear you say
that.”
    Her jaw fell open. “Blue asked you
out.”
    “ Yep.”
    “ You said yes?”
    I paused. Okay, I probably shouldn’t
have. But I couldn’t resist him.
    “ Ohmigod,” Dee said, her
words running together as she dragged me upstairs and into my
bedroom.
    I sat my mug on the white bedside table
and flopped down on the fluffy down comforter on my bed.
    “ How did this happen?” Dee
said, pacing. Then she gasped. “Did you call him?”
    “ No!” I shot out. This girl
has some pride, you know.
    “ He came to you?”
    I told her about his second visit to
the salon. She didn’t say anything but raced through my bathroom
and into the walk-in closet. “Girl, you need to look hot, as in
H-A-W-T. Make him eat his heart out.”
    Sounded good to me. Giving him a taste
of what he does to me wasn’t a bad idea.
    I fell back into my hundreds of pillows
(okay, it was more like ten) and thought about the first—and
last—date I had with Blue. North Carolina had been on the cusp of
summer. The weather was in that special in-between state that we
southerners never got enough of. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t
too cold. It was warm and when the breeze blew, there was just a
hint of chill in the air.
    He picked me up and drove us to
Wilmington, which was about an hour south of Jacksonville. We ended
up at the Mayfaire Shops at Brixx, this totally delicious
wood-fired pizza place. We sat outside underneath their awning and
ate wood-fired pizza and sampled some of their brewed
beers.
    We laughed a lot. I remembered thinking
about how laidback and relaxed he was, considering the profession
he worked in afforded so much authority. In fact, if I hadn’t known
he was a police officer, it would have been the last thing I would
have guessed about him.
    After dinner, we walked around the
outdoor shops, not really paying attention to anything because we
were so wrapped up in each other. When it started to thunder, he
pulled me into the nearby movie theater and bought tickets to a
movie I barely remembered. Who could pay attention to the big
screen when someone that literally made my heart race was sitting
just beside me? During those blissful two hours, I practically
lived for those casual touches when his arm would brush against
mine or when our fingers would bump together when we both reached
for the popcorn at the same time.
    My entire body had been hyper aware of
him the entire time. When the movie was almost over, he reached
over and threaded his fingers through mine. I’d never felt such a
nest of butterflies inside my body than I had right then. He left
our hands joined together, resting them in my lap until the credits
rolled onto the screen.
    It was storming when we walked out of
the theater. Big, fat drops of rain that splashed in the