“I think you’ll make an exception,” he says confidently.
“What is this?”
“Local food-vendor market. They do this every other weekend. All the cuisines are different, but there’s usually a theme for what menus they offer.”
“A theme?”
“Mhm.” I feel his thumb trace across the back of my hand, and I think to myself that I might let him feed me out of the dumpster if he keeps doing that. “Can you guess what tonight’s theme is?”
I’m still distracted by the slow back and forth of his thumb. “Um . . . Taco Tuesday?”
“It’s Friday,” he laughs.
“Just spill. I told you, surprises are bleh.”
Noah tugs my hand again, and I fall into step beside him as he casually tells me, “It’s soup night.”
“You’re fucking joking.”
Noah barks out a laugh, and the sound of it makes my chest feel funny. It might be the first time I’ve ever heard him laugh like that. “I am not.”
“Oh my God.” I might actually be bouncing up and down. “I’m getting one of everything. Can I get one of everything? Do they have mini sizes? I want to try it all.”
Noah looks incredibly pleased with himself, and let’s face it, he should be, pulling my hand to his mouth again to brush his lips across the back in a move that is quickly becoming addictive. “You can get whatever you want.”
“All right,” I warn, trying not to sound as breathless as his innocent kiss makes me feel. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Noah just continues to smile, never letting go of my hand.
* * *
?There are eleven little cups of soup at our table. Eleven. I should probably be embarrassed by that, but I just can’t find it in myself to feel anything other than giddy excitement. There’s miso, pho, taco, and even some gazpacho I’d been chomping at the bit over—and Noah seems content to let me try each one, taking my overexaggerated moans and delighted sounds in stride as he nurses his own bowl of minestrone and sneaks the occasional bite of something I force him to try.
“I had no idea this was a thing,” I say eventually, after he recounts a difficult stent he put in the day before. “How did I not know this was a thing?”
“It’s fairly new,” Noah tells me, licking his spoon clean in a move that makes me feel too warm. I blame the outdoor heaters they have set up under the pavilion. “They only started doing it a couple of months ago.”
“Careful,” I tease. “That sounds dangerously like fate.”
Noah smiles as he scoops up another bite. “And we know how you feel about that.”
“Hey, just because it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good coincidence.”
“So, you . . . like this?” I look up to catch the nervous flicker in Noah’s gaze, watching him eye me warily as if he’s unsure. “I know you said you weren’t a cheap date, but this just felt like something—”
I reach across our little table to cover his hand with mine—partly to reassure him and partly because I am quickly becoming addicted to the weight of it—giving him what I hope is a reassuring grin.
“I love it,” I tell him earnestly.
Noah’s shoulders look visibly less tense after hearing this. “Good. I would hate to end up as one of your regaling horror stories.”
“Hey, you’ve gone an entire hour without once mentioning the gym or crypto—so I’d say you’re already leagues above any of the other dates I’ve been on this year.”
“Good,” he says again. “I wanted . . .” He peers down into his bowl, looking a little embarrassed. “I wanted it to be perfect.”
That heavy thing in my chest that’s taken up residence ever since our time at the cabin throbs as if to make sure I haven’t forgotten about it, and I take a second to appreciate just how beautiful Noah is—something I never thought I’d be thinking when it came to the Boogeyman of Denver General. But he is, I decide. And not only on the outside. It scares the hell out of me, but it also makes me feel warm in a way I never have before.
“It is,” I tell him. “It’s perfect.”
His smile is slow and shy, and on someone his size, it should look ridiculous. Instead, it makes my stomach flutter. I have to break eye contact before my heart beats out of my chest, focusing on the French onion I’m currently working on to distract myself.