The Promise of Lace (17 page)

Authors: Lilith Duvalier

BOOK: The Promise of Lace

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Dieter stared at me.
Stunned.

Behind him, Noah put a hand over his mouth, and in a badly
disguised voice, bellowed “Kiss her!”

It was a stupid, terrible cliché. But it caught. The two
high school girls who had been presumably
tweeting
the
whole spectacle from the line for coffee started chanting it. The baristas
joined in. People started coming to the front of the stores.

Dieter flushed red. I could feel my own cheeks burning.

He leaned forward and kissed me. A cheer went up.

I was thrilled on the stupid grin on his face when he pulled
back. “Come on. Let me walk you to your car before security shows up.”

“Okay.”

We booked back through the thickening crowd, back out to the
parking lot, stopping when we reached the side of my car. Hailey opened my door
and handed me my coat quickly and efficiently, as though this were some sort of
totally fucked up relay race.

I slipped it on gleefully.

“I’d… I’d love to give this another try,” Dieter said. “I
think I just… overreacted.”

“I get that.”

“And I never should have read your texts.”

“No. You shouldn’t have. But I understand why you did.”

He kissed me again. “I missed you.”

“Yeah.
You too.”

He fiddled with his phone in his pocket for a moment. “So… I
get off work in two hours.
Dinner?”

“Yeah.
I could pick up some Thai and you could
come over to my place?”

“Do you… do you mind maybe wearing that?”

I chuckled and shivered again.
Only
partially from the spring chill this time.
“You wanna pick yourself out
something to match?”

“It’s a date.”