I OPEN THE PASSENGER door to my truck for her and watch as her slight weight presses onto the running boards to hoist herself up into the cab. My hands move to help her, but I draw them back, not daring to touch her. She’s off limits for all sorts of reasons. A shy smile turns up the corners of her mouth as she twists to fasten her seatbelt. The panic in her eyes from before in the bedroom has left them soft and glassy.

I turn the keys in the ignition and rev up the engine before backing Colossus up and out into traffic. “So what are you hungry for? Any cravings kick up during the long day that you’ve had?” Her hand grabs the ‘Holy shit’ handle  as we turn onto the main street. The glass packs rattle and rumble under our butts. Her eyes go wide at the amount of noise coming from the rear of the truck.

“Umm, I could go for pancakes,” she offers, causing me to swivel my head in surprise at her request.  “Or a bacon cheeseburger if you need protein.” She stammers on the addition of that last request like she needs to placate me.

“Which is it? Breakfast or a burger. It doesn’t matter to me, but thank you for not saying ‘It doesn’t matter, you choose,’” I say in my best, high-pitched female voice. “I appreciate you at least giving me something to go off of.” Her eyes crinkle from her warm smile at my semi-sexist joke. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way, but it did.  At least I didn’t get an elbow to the shoulder or a slap in the face. This one’s got a sense of humor.

“I am anything but high maintenance— that would be my sister. I choose pancakes then. I want something that I don’t usually indulge in.”

“You don’t usually eat pancakes?” I cringe at the thought of never having the gooey, sticky sweetness of syrup on my lips.

“I’m a Cali girl. We don’t eat carbs. Ever.” She laughs deeply like she’s just told me her darkest secret.

“Ahhh. That would explain the high number of sushi restaurants in the area.” I pull into an IHOP and park right up front. The place is dead with only five other cars in the lot, and those are probably the employees. “I’ll get the door for you.”

“No, please. You don’t need to do that.” And before I can protest, she swings the door open and slides down to the ground, closing the door with a slam. Alright. I guess I won’t be a gentleman. She’s already walking toward the door, leaving me to wonder if I’m even a part of this scenario.

On my way through the door, a group of teenagers passes Noa at the hostess stand, and they all turn around, tripping over each other to check her out. She turns and beams a smile at me, making one of the teenagers groan with hormonal frustration. Yeah, I recognize that groan, for sure.

Miss Nosey Rosey is already securing a table for two with menus, so maybe she is willing to dine with me. We follow the waitress to the table, and Noa offers for me to choose which side of the booth I want.

“Here, you choose your seat since I chose the restaurant.”

“No, you picked the type of food. I chose the restaurant. You can select your seat first.”

“OMG! Just pick a seat. Really.” She throws me a friendly smile and gestures to the bench seats with her hands. The natural tint of her skin and freckles start to turn a nice shade of blushing pink. I’m not sure if she’s embarrassed about the scene we are starting to make, or she’s getting angry.

“No. You sit first. You’re the newbie to the circuit. Let me treat you. Please choose your seat.”

“Braxton, this is not a contest of whose manners are better. Just sit.”

“Then if it’s not a contest, just sit your butt down on a bench. I’m the man and am trying to be a gentleman here. Please sit.”

The waitress gets fed up with our antics and takes a seat in the booth next to ours waiting for us to be seated. She looks at her watch, probably dreading the beginning of her shift or anticipating the end of it. Either way, we both glance in her direction before turning back to our face-off situation that’s brewing.

My jaw clenches tight with aggravation while her face turns from that adorable shade of pink to a hot shade of pissed-off red. She growls at me and tosses her purse onto the bench closest to me. Her body slides against mine as she maneuver’s herself between the table and the seat.

The muscles of her ass clench against my thigh mid-bend of her taking her seat, pushing me backward, and for one brief second, I forgot what we were arguing about.

The waitress takes Noa’s drink order and brings me a carafe of coffee before giving us a few minutes to look over the menu.

“Soooo.” That one single word I draw out gets her attention quickly. She quirks an eyebrow up at me in irritation, daring me to speak to her. I’m a brave man who grew up in a family full of fiery women. I can hold my own, so I forge forward. “Were you looking for something special in your pancakes or are you going for an all-you-can-eat stack of carbs?”

She lowers her menu, piercing me with a hot glare of contempt, but I hold my smile— not willing to give in an inch. I will make her talk to me, no matter how long I have to sit here with a simpleton smile on my face.

“Or maybe you want to try those French Toast flavors from their commercials. You know, the ones where the berries and bananas are piled high, and the syrup is spilling over the plate.  And the child’s sticky fingers get stuck to the napkin his mom hands him, but his smile is spread wide from ear to ear because you know they’re good and he’s high on a sugar rush.  Come to think of it; maybe I’ll order that.”  She deadpans a look at me that makes me question myself as to why I’m still talking.

“Honestly, I don’t know about you.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You don’t know anything about me and my love of pancakes.” I look her right in her gray eyes. They’re so light; I can almost see through them.  “I’m just a guy, sitting here trying to get a girl some pancakes before she dies from lack of carbs.” I look down at the menu and flip to the next page, trying my hardest not to bust out laughing at how stupid I’m being.

My attempt at making her talk after our dumb argument of who sits where is going nowhere. It never crossed my mind to care about something like that, but she egged me on with that sexy, obstinate look on her face.

“Have you decided on your order?” The waitress sneaks up on me from behind, and I jump a little. Noa sees this, and her hand comes up to cover a small smile. For a brief second in time, my heart warms knowing I put a smile on her face, especially today of all days. I can tell she’s had a long one after traveling and then experiencing her little claustrophobia attack in the camper.

We place our orders, and in the silence after the waitress leaves, we both pick up our phones and start scrolling through messages. The silence is awkward, but in going through the motion of checking but not really checking my emails, I don’t have anything new to read. I darken my phone and lay it down next to me.

I’m not of the iPhone generation. I only use it to keep in touch with my son. My total email count right now is twelve, and I could easily delete all of them since they’re all read. By tomorrow morning,  my PA will put them in their proper folders and keep me sane with her organization, but until then, they give me something to use as a distraction until I don’t want to be distracted any longer.

“So, what are you gonna be doing on the circuit?” I feel dumb for asking, but no one ever told me. All I know is that I have an extra bunk in my trailer for anyone that needs it as we travel along and every now and again, they ask me to use it.

She looks up from her phone, raising that eyebrow again in questioning me. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“No. If they did, I wouldn’t be asking you. I promise. I’m not usually in the habit of asking questions that I know the answers to.”

“I’m a sports medicine doctor.” She sits up straight and stirs around the pulp in her orange juice with her straw. She releases a heavy sigh before speaking again.  “My specialty is shoulders and the back, and since those are the major problems in this sport, they’ve hired me on to assist when I’m needed. I’m also a PiYo instructor, that’s Pilates and Yoga combined, so I’ll be utilizing that skill as well.”

“No way. You don’t look old enough to be a doctor. I thought they spent something like a decade in school and then another four to six years interning.”

“Some doctors can spend even more time in school and then in their training. It depends on their chosen specialty, but I’ve been an attending doctor for almost eight years now.”

The waitress brings our order, and I can’t help but laugh at how big Noa’s eyes get when she sees her order. She lifts her well-manicured finger and counts up the stack.

“Jeez! There are eight pancakes stacked on this plate. That’s got to be more than 2000 calories. It’s a good thing I’ve barely eaten today with all of the traveling and airport hopping I did.”  She drizzles syrup on top, letting it spill over the sides of the stack before cutting it with her knife and fork.

She makes one elongated triangle cut all the way through the mound, slicing through them like butter.  Stabbing her fork into as many of the bite-sized triangles as it will hold, she lifts them into her mouth at once. Her lips glisten with the sugar sweetness of the maple syrup, and she moans as she chews.

I’m glad we are sitting in a booth because my dick just got rock hard hearing her enjoy her carbs. It’s pressing against my zipper, making me wiggle and attempt to adjust myself in a gentlemanly manner without using my hands.

Doc is a no-go for me. I can’t get close to her, much less want her. We need to keep this business-like between us, and I’ll be okay. This is my last year on the circuit. I need to focus and win so that I can gain custody of my son and give him a normal life. That’s what matters; not getting my rocks off with the doc, no matter how beautiful she is.

“How is your  Oreo Stuffed French Toast?” She asks, eying each bite as I lift it to my mouth. Her tongue tentatively appears between her lips, licking them and now I’m rethinking my previous thought of her being off-limits. Fuck, I’m in trouble here.

“It’s delicious. Do you want a bite?” I slice her a bite and hold it out to her, watching the chocolate syrup and whipped cream drip from the tip of my fork onto the table. “Oops. Watch it. It’s kinda messy.”

She chews on her lip while thinking about it before she pulls it off my fork with her fingertips and pops it into her mouth. Her eyes flutter closed in ecstasy as her head leans back and her throat elongates to swallow the sweet, gooey goodness. A moan escapes her lips, and sticky fingers covered in messy chocolate slide between them, in and back out again, sucking the sweetness from them one by one.  I’ve never in my life seen anything more erotic than that.

She opens her eyes and the slightly rosey blush that she had before creeps back into her skin. “I’m sorry for that indecent display. It’s not often that I give in to my sugar cravings, but that was divine.”

“I see you’ve been living a life of deprivation.”

“Ha. You don’t know the half of it. My life is...sheltered. It’s been one massive quest for control by my mother.”

“Aren’t you old enough and accomplished enough to live your own life?”

“You’d think. I am thirty-six, but you don’t know Marlena Knight. We’ll leave it at that.”

“Alright. If you say so.” I take a few more bites of my dinner before pushing it away and cutting the sweetness with my black coffee.  Noa continues to cut her pancake into dainty triangles and to swallow them whole. Her orange juice is empty, so I signal the waitress to bring her another. She leans back into the bench and sighs in contentment while closing her eyes again. I believe she’s finally full.

“Would you like to set up some ground rules for our survival together in that small camper over the next few weeks?” Her eyes open slowly and gaze at me with a lost, unfocused look. She’s in a food coma. “I think you’ve eaten too much. I hope you don’t get sick now.”

“And this is why my mother controls my life. This is also why I ran away. I suck at adulting.” She shifts slightly in her seat groaning and wincing in discomfort. Her hand is going straight to her stomach to rub it. “ Oh my God, roll me out of here now.”

“C’mon Doc. Let’s get you outta here.” I help her stand as she groans in being upright. Her steps are slow and sluggish, but she makes it to the counter and waits while I pay. As I’m collecting the change from the register attendant, Noa makes her way outside into the fresh air and stands by my truck. I point the keyfob towards my truck and hear it ‘beep beep’ to open for her.

As I make my way outside, she’s painfully climbing into the truck on her own, and I don’t dare attempt to help her again. I’ve learned that lesson already. With slow movements like a turtle, she’s in and settled.

We ride in silence for a few blocks; the glass packs in the muffler startle her every now and again making her jump when they go off.  “Are you going to be alright?”

“Shhhh. Just let the insulin dump into my body in peace. It needs to eat up all that sugar I ate in silence.” She hiccups and closes her eyes again. Every now and again, I hit a bump and hear her groan in discomfort. Yup, she ate way too many carbs. Amateur.