Page 45 of Mack

“Everyone hates that road.”

“I know.” He glanced at her. “You were up waiting, weren’t you?”

She looked at her coffee. “Maybe.”

He didn’t say anything to that, just nodded once like it meant something to him, and she let it go.

Connie brought their food and they ate. They’d gotten comfortable with easy conversation moving between the shop, the job, and T.J.’s ongoing position that T-Rex was superior to all other dinosaurs, with the brontosaurus second. A hill he was apparently prepared to die on.

Mack smiled at that. He always smiled when she talked about T.J.

She was noticing things like that now. Small things. The way he made room for her son in every conversation without being asked. The way he’d started saying we without seeming to realize he was doing it. We could take him to see the horses again. We should get him those boots before the snow gets deeper.

She’d stopped flinching at it.

Mack set his fork down and turned his coffee cup slowly in his hands, which she’d learned meant he was working up to something.

She waited.

“My parents would like you to come dinner,” he said and looked at her. “I’d like you to meet them. You and T.J. if you’re willing.”

She looked at him. “You want me to meet your parents.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a big deal, Mack.”

“I know what it is.” He held her gaze, steady as always. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to come to dinner.”

She almost smiled at that. “Those are very different things.”

“They are.” He picked up his coffee. “So, what do you say?”

She looked at him for a long moment. This man who held her coat, walked on the outside of the sidewalk, and smiled every time she mentioned her son’s name.

“Alright,” she said. “We’ll come to dinner.”

Something moved across his face. Not triumph, nothing like that. Just quiet satisfaction, the kind that didn’t need to announce itself.

“Good,” he said, and went back to his lunch.

****

Mack had trouble keeping his eyes off her. He didn’t want to make her nervous, so he kept his attention on his food, his coffee, and the conversation, but every time he glanced at her he thought about Saturday night and had to work at keeping his face neutral.

He was forty-two years old. He shouldn’t be this far gone over a woman after one evening, but he was anyway.

Every time the door opened a rush of cold air came in, and Mack shifted on his stool to block it from hitting her.

“We should have taken a booth,” he said.

“I’m fine.” She grinned.

“Because I’m blocking the wind for you.”

“Such a gentleman.”

He touched the brim of his hat. “Yes, ma’am.”