“Okay.”

“And since I said we’re in love, I think we should at least be going on a few months together. Like two or three, which would put us at meeting . . .”

Two or three?

“Wait a minute.” I hold my hand up, halting her insane line of thinking. “You’ve fallen in love with someone that fast before?”

That’s not possible. Besides the only two people on the planet who are the giant freak exception to that rule, Ben and Mia, no one falls in love that fast. It took me almost a year to realize I loved Molly.

She slowly drops her hand down to her lap, joining her other one. “I’ve never fallen in love with anyone. But I think you can fall in love that fast. I think sometimes it can happen almost instantly. Like as soon as you see someone. You immediately feel this pull toward that other person.”

“Yeah, you want to have sex with them. That’s what that pull is. Or in my case, it’s usually a firm squeeze, and then a pull.”

I grin.

She rolls her eyes.

“No,” she says through a shake of her head. “Sex obviously does play a part in it. But you can also have feelings for somebody right away that you don’t understand. Maybe at the time you think it’s just a desire to sleep with them, but then weeks, or months later, you think back and it’s like, wow. That’s what that was. That’s why I needed to be with them.” She drops her eyes to the table. “That’s what I would want,” she says through a much softer voice. “Love should be unpredictable. I want it to hit me and like, knock me on my ass. And I don’t want it to take me years to realize that’s what I was feeling. I think two to three months is plenty of time, if not sooner.” She blinks up at me. “But I’m not an expert on this. You probably have more experience on this subject than I do. So, you decide. How long would it take you to fall in love with me?”

This woman. Fuck.

I stare at her as the stomach ache I was faking becomes something very real. Though it’s not really an ache. It’s more like a fist wrapping around every organ in my body and squeezing it just until it becomes restricting.

I know her question is justified. I know this is something we need to have locked down before Molly or someone else asks us separately about our relationship. Beth is asking me this because she has to, but this feels like something much more important to her. And shit, it’s now suddenly important to me. Giving her the answer she wants isn’t my only option, but it’s the only way I want to respond.

I struggle through a swallow, getting down the last bit of saliva left in my mouth. “Three months sounds good. That’ll work for me.”

She blinks several times before her nose crinkles with a smile. “Okay. Three months would put us at March. Where would we have met?”

“Can we say McGill’s? There’s at least some truth to that.”

“I was playing pool, and I had no idea what I was doing. You came over and gave me a few pointers.”

I smile playfully at her set up, and she reacts by slowly nodding, as if she knows what I’m about to say. The little minx.

“I showed you how to handle my pool cue.”

“And your balls.”

She masks her own amusement with a serious face, and I give her one right back.

It’s a stand-off, neither one of us cracking until I see the slightest twitch in the corner of her mouth. I can’t hold my reaction in anymore, and we both start laughing at the same time. Hers muffled by the hand clamped over her mouth, and mine echoing out around us.

What the hell is it about this woman that makes me feel lighter?

Sliding her hand down, it settles on her chest as she recovers slowly from her laughing fit. “What do you do anyway? Like for work?”

I let the chilled root beer quench my thirst before I answer. “Construction. I work for my family’s company.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I love it. It’s all I’ve ever known, but I don’t think I’m missing out on anything. I like hard work, earning that beer at the end of the day. It’s really important to me. I’ll probably be just like my grandfather and do it until I can’t fucking walk anymore.”

“When it rains, you don’t have to work?” she asks, rubbing her thumb along the condensation that’s built up on her glass as the smallest crease pinches her eyebrows together.

“No, it usually shuts everything down. We don’t get that much rain here, so it’s not too bad. We’ve never gotten behind on a job.”

I down the rest of my drink when Beth picks her glass up, and it’s then I realize that I haven’t asked her any questions. I don’t know anything about her, yet she seems so strangely familiar to me.

“Hattie told me the other night you just moved in with them. Did you leave the rest of your family in Kentucky?” I ask, setting my empty glass at the edge of the table for the waitress to pick up. Maybe she’s just visiting with her aunt for the summer.

She shifts in her seat while her hands fall to her lap, pulling at the bottom of her dress. I know this because of the way the material moves against her stomach. She’s fidgeting all of a sudden. Why? Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be doing?

“No, I don’t have any other family,” she answers anxiously, and I suddenly feel like a dick for causing the change in her demeanor. “My momma died a few months ago. She was all I had.”

Shit. “I’m sorry.”

The corner of her mouth lifts ever so slightly. “She had some issues, but she was a good mom. When she died, it was really hard not having anybody. I didn’t know about my aunt until right before I moved here a few days ago.”

I want to ask more about her mom, but I don’t want her getting sad. “Your dad?”

“Don’t know him. I don’t even know if my momma knew who he was.” She scrapes her teeth along her bottom lip. “Sorry, there’s not much to tell about me. I don’t have a job yet. The only family I have are my aunt and uncle. I’m twenty-two, I love to read, and I’m really, really glad I’m here.”

Here. Alabama? Or here, here? With me?

I smile, hoping to ease some of the worry that’s making her tense up on me. “I think what you’ve just told me is plenty.”

The tension dissolves from her body, and she reaches for the check the waitress dropped off sometime during this conversation. How did I miss that?

“I’ll pay half. You put up an impressive fight.”

The fuck she will.

I grab the check from her, stand from the booth, and reach for my wallet. After throwing sixty bucks on the table to cover our meal and a generous tip, I tuck my wallet back in my pocket.

“Another thing you should know about me,” I tell her, watching those eyes of hers gauge me with blunt intensity. “When we’re together, you don’t pay. Even if I would’ve won you wouldn’t be paying, and any guy that takes you out like this and expects you to cover any part of the meal, is a dick.”

“But this wasn’t a date or anything.”

I brace one hand on the ledge of the booth behind her, flatten my other hand on the table, and lean down, getting inches from her face. I’m expecting her to back up, or maybe startle a bit at my intrusion, but fuck me if she doesn’t tilt her head up, welcoming it.