“Ice cream?” I laughed as we pulled the car to a halt on the pier. “This is where you wanted to take me?”

“Yup.” Holden grinned as he pulled the car to a halt. “I’m not coming all the way into the city and not getting ice cream from my favorite place now, am I?”

“And what if I had said no? Would you have picked it up on the way home?”

He shrugged. “Probably. Come on, it’s only open for another twenty minutes. We can get one and walk down the pier. It’s pretty this time of night.”

“And you’re not going to spring a last-minute boat ride on me, are you?” I asked him playfully. He held his hands up.

“Well, now you’ve called me out on it…”

“Holden!” I exclaimed, tapping his shoulder playfully. “Come on, I want to try this ice cream. Or should I say… cone on?”

“Okay, that was the worst joke I’ve ever heard in my life,” Holden told me as he climbed out of the car.

“You totally thought it was funny,” I replied. “Besides, you better get used to them. Terrible jokes are sort of my specialty.”

“Why do you think I keep feeding you?” he teased. “I don’t want to hear any of your puns anymore.”

“Bold idea, but it’s not going to work.” I tapped my finger on my chin, as though pondering on it. “Nothing stops me when I have a terrible joke the world needs to hear.”

“A national service, is it?” he asked as we headed toward a small, old-fashioned looking ice cream shop.

“I’m only doing my duty for my country.” I placed my hand on my heart. “The world can’t be denied my awful sense of humor.”

“Of course.” He opened the door for me and swept his hand ahead of him to indicate I should enter. “After you.”

I brushed by him and had to smile when I caught a whiff of his aftershave. There was something so nice about being out with him like this, after all that time I’d spent trying to ignore that I was developing a serious crush on the guy. I didn’t have to hide it anymore, didn’t have to hold back. We were out together on a real date, and he was treating me like the perfect lady to his perfect gentleman. Though I was hoping he would drop that act as soon as we were alone together once more.

“What do you recommend?” I asked as I scanned through the list of flavors. There were the usual ones there—vanilla, strawberry, chocolate—as well as some more out-there ones. I was pretty full, but my mouth watered when I caught sight of a salted caramel espresso one.

“Well, I can see which one you’re going to go for,” he teased, noticing the way my eyes lingered on the sign of the ice cream that had caught my attention. “I’ll get a ginger-orange one. You can try some if you want.”

“All right, but I’m not sharing mine,” I warned him playfully. He paid for the couple of cones, despite my protests, and the old man behind the counter loaded up the waffle cones with a scoop of our chosen flavors and handed them to us. Holden led me back out on to the pier, and I paused for a moment, looking out over the water, catching a drip of melting ice cream that was making its way down my cone already.

“This place is so pretty at night,” I said. “I’ve never come down here this late in the evening before.”

“I used to bring Hunter down here a lot when I didn’t have much cash and was trying to find stuff for the two of us to do,” he explained, joining me and leaning on the railing in front of the water. “It was cheap to get a little ice cream and take him for a walk down here.”

“And now he only comes for the ice cream, right?” I finished up for him.

“How did you guess?” He raised his eyebrows and took a bite of his cone. “It is really fucking good, after all.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed, as I started in on my scoop. “I’m looking forward to having Hunter in that after-school club thing. I think it’s going to do him good.”

“Me too,” Holden agreed. “I’m glad he seems so enthusiastic about it. It’s been hard finding stuff that appeals to him outside of going out with me, but you seem to bring out that side in him.”

“He’s at that funny age now.” I shrugged. “Sometimes they go out and make their way in the world without any help needed, and sometimes they need a little nudging in the right direction. He’s trying to figure himself out. It might take a while, but he’ll get there.”

“I’m so glad you’re there to give him a hand,” he told me, looking at me seriously. “I know it’s been hard for him, but having you around has made it a lot easier.”

“He’s the one putting in the work too,” I replied. “Hey, does he know we’re out together tonight?”

“Yeah, I mentioned it to him. He kept asking me if we were going out together, and I just told him finally. Is that all right?”

“He’s young enough that he won’t think much of it.” I shrugged. “Maybe jealous he didn’t get to join us for ice cream, huh?”

“Oh yeah, that’s for sure what he’s going to be the maddest about,” Holden agreed. “I told him not to talk to you about it, though. He knows that much.”

“That’s a relief,” I replied, planting a hand on my heart. “I don’t want to have my dating life come up at school, not when Zoe’s around on gossip high alert.”

I think my friends are the same way.” He grinned. “They want me to get together with someone already, and they’ve been hearing about everything that’s been happening with us all along, so they’re feeling pretty smug now that we’re on a date.”

“Well, they should,” I agreed, flashing him a smile. “You’re doing pretty well.”

“Pretty well?”

“Pretty well,” I repeated playfully. “Room for improvement, but the night’s not over yet.”

I slipped my arm through his, and we made our way down the pier while a question crossed my mind. I knew it was the kind of thing I should have kept to myself on a first date, but since we’d known each other a while, I figured I had a right to ask it. And besides, I wouldn’t be able to shake it from my mind if I didn’t.

“Hunter’s mother,” I asked, hesitant. “What’s the situation there?”

“Hey, don’t hold back, huh?” Holden shot me a look that was one part playful and one part defensive. I winced.

“Sorry, is that kind of a sore spot?”

“No, it’s fine.” He rubbed his hand over his face and paused for a moment. “Look, I don’t want to talk about Hunter’s mother if I can avoid it. All you need to know is that she’s not in the picture, and she’s not going to be. Ever.”

“Okay.” I let out a breath. My curiosity was piqued, but pressing any harder was going to wind up in me ruining this date, which had been going so well thus far. I didn’t want to put a downer on our night, so I changed the subject.

“Oh, I have so many grade curves to do this week,” I groaned. “I’d rather be out here with you, trust me.”

“You know, the offer’s still on the table if you want to take it,” Holden said. “I could come up with a program that forms them for you. Might take a bit of time, and I’m sure I’ll need your input on it, but if you’re game…”

“You’re serious?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “For free?”

He nodded. “Yeah, of course. I told you, anything I can do to make the lives of the people who look after my son easier.”

“Well, aren’t you Mister Generous,” I teased, nibbling on my ice cream. “Don’t you have proper clients you’d rather be taking care of? Ones who pay?”

“Maybe I’m looking for excuses to spend more time with you,” he shot back, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m sure I can find some way to help you indulge that,” I replied, my pulse racing a little as I saw his gaze move down to my mouth for a moment. Even though we’d already hooked up before we’d so much as planned our first date, I still found our sexual chemistry burning as brightly as it had ever been. If this pier hadn’t been so damn family-friendly, I would have been tempted to have him push me up against the railings and take me right here.

“Glad to hear it.” He took a bite of his ice cream, and we continued down the pier, looping around the far end and starting slowly to make our way back toward the top.

“Even if it didn’t give me a chance to spend time with you,” he said, “something like that could be big if we could pull it off. I know it may not sound like it, but if lots of teachers are having trouble like you—wasting their time putting together something that a program could do for them—it could be a big win for me.”

“Oh, so you do have some selfish reasons then,” I teased. “Thought so.”

“Hey, are you calling me selfish?” He raised his eyebrows. “When I got this ice cream for you?”

“Yeah, like you haven’t wanted to steal a bite since I picked it up,” I shot back.

“Sure have,” he agreed, and before I could even think about what was happening, he leaned forward to loop an arm around my waist, pulling me close and pressing his mouth to mine. His lips were cool from the ice cream, distantly sweet, and my heart fluttered in my chest as our mouths found one another. I felt as though my feet were barely touching the ground, my entire being spinning in the air as he kissed me.

When he pulled back, he smiled and lifted his hand to brush the tiniest smudge of ice-cream from my face.

“Not so selfish now, huh?” he remarked, and he kissed me on the cheek once more before he turned to lead me back down the pier. I didn’t have the words to fire back some smart comment in his direction, as much as I wanted to. Because my heart was too busy racing in my chest, my mind too preoccupied with trying to make sense of everything that kiss had meant to me. I paused for a moment, watching him walking in front of me, and it was as though clouds had cleared from behind my eyes, and I could finally see him properly. The man I was looking at was a man I was beginning to fall for, harder than I’d ever expected to.

“Hey, wait up!” I called after him as I hurried to catch up with him while a sticky line of ice cream made its way down my hand, cool on my skin like he had been.