Free Save the Date by Susan Hatler Page B

be in this phone. Photos, documents, text messages . . . my mouth was practically watering. Then I thought of Ellen, as she’d touched her stomach, and told me she trusted Henry with her heart.
    Then I thought of Jake.
    I tapped into Ethan’s photos first. “Hmm. Looks like someone went hiking last weekend.”
    “We did a ten-mile hike at Point Reyes.” He lifted his fajita, as if to take a bite. “Gorgeous views.”
    “I can see that,” I said, freezing on a picture of Ethan shirtless at the top of a cliff—the California coastline below him wasn’t bad either. The way the blue-gray water reached for the shore with white foamy fingers, appeared ethereal. “I want to go there.”
    He didn’t hesitate. “Name the date.”
    “You mean go together?” My insides glowed at the thought, and I considered it. “We’d have to coordinate calendars.”
    “You’re holding my calendar,” he said, then popped the last bite of his fajita into his mouth.
    My lashes lifted. “So, I should just write myself in?”
    “Any day you want.” His eyes met mine with a sizzling look that shot zings through me.
    I gulped, wanting him to save every date for me. Tempting. Way too tempting. Instead of answering, I slid my finger across the screen, switching to a photo of some guy (not half as hot as Ethan) giving Ethan’s camera the finger. “Charming.”
    He laughed. “That’s James. We had a bet on who’d reach the peak first. He lost.”
    I smiled. Men.
    Thinking that James could be on his knee proposing as we sat here, my heart rate kicked up as I considered what a relationship with Ethan would be like. It’d be different than with Jake. For one, Ethan and I had the same interests. We also laughed together, which Jake and I rarely did. And Ethan had told me to pick any date, unlike Jake who used to tell me when he was available.
    Was Ethan trustworthy? Like Henry (hopefully) was? Ethan had handed me his phone/world, after all. My heart zipped from a trot to a gallop as I decided to go hiking with him. I opened my mouth to suggest Sunday when, suddenly, Ethan’s cell phone vibrated in my hand. A local number displayed on the screen. “I’m guessing it’s for you.”
    Ethan gave me a look I couldn’t read, like he didn’t want the call, then finally took the phone. “This is Ethan. Who? Oh, right. Hi, Amanda.”
    With that one name, my heart stopped, and I remembered the girl from Ethan’s office who’d hung on every word he said. She was calling him now? After eight o’clock? How’d she get his number?
    Alarms went off in my head, and I couldn’t hear Ethan’s conversation through the mental sirens. I picked at what was left of my dinner, which felt like coming back up my throat.
    Finally, Ethan hung up, and set his phone down. “That was Tiffany’s friend. She’s having some legal problems she wants to talk to me about.”
    I stared at him, my heart steeling over. “You keep late office hours.”
    Ignoring my snarky comment, his forehead wrinkled. “She wants to meet me after work tomorrow. At a bar.”
    “You should go.” I stood, picked up my plate, then carried it to the kitchen. “She seems nice.”
    For a girl who was using some kind of legal jam to make a date with a hot lawyer.
    He came up behind me, and leaned over my shoulder, so his mouth was close to my ear. “I’d rather go out with you,” he said.
    My heart flipped, but then I remembered the weird look Ethan made when I’d handed him the phone and wondered what he was hiding. “I’m not dating right now.”
    His eyes searched mine. “I’ll wait until you’re ready. What do you think I’ve been doing the last four months?”
    I gaped at him. “Are you saying . . .?”
    “That I’m crazy about you? Yes.” He stepped forward, then lifted my chin with his finger. “And you feel the same way about me.”
    My heart pounded in my chest. “What makes you say that?”
    He tilted his head, his eyes gazing at me with all their