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“Says the guy currently wearing his dinner.” I shrug and take another bite.

He eyes me with amusement while he picks rice off himself.

“But baby steps. I think I can only do big pieces. Next time, I will try to master rice and noodles,” I say.

“Or you could let me help you,” he says, holding up a bite of noodles to my mouth. What had the makings of a very sexy moment goes all wrong when I open my mouth too slowly and the noodles start to slide. Thinking fast, I cup my hands like a bowl under the rain of noodles about to hit my lap.

“Oh, shit. Sorry!”

“It’s okay.” If I hadn’t been so focused on him focusing on my mouth, I would have opened in time.

I rush to the kitchen to clean up and grab myself a fork so I don’t starve.

“A for effort.” He winks and resumes eating after I sit back down.

“Thanks for trying.” I grab the remote and hit Play.

“Oh, Henry Mancini does the music on this one.” I read the words appearing on the TV. “He did Breakfast at Tiffany’s too. I love ‘Moon River,’” I sing. Then, the music picks up a haunting piano melody, the chord striking over and over.

I randomly pick up another carton and actually eat some food with my trusty fork.

“Creepy music. Check,” Beau comments. “Can you see okay if I shut the lamp off?”

“Yeah, I’m good—wait, is that a doll? Oh hell no.”

“I think he’s sewing drugs into it.”

“This can’t be good. Dolls are creepy.”

“Didn’t you play with dolls as a kid?”

“Not ones that looked like that. Porcelain dolls scare the shit out of me. My granny had one that was hers as a kid, Arabella, fluttering eyes and all. Me and my cousins would dare each other to go up in the attic and touch it,” I tell him, my skin breaking out in goose bumps. “After we moved in, I begged my dad to put a padlock on the trunk that it was on. And then we made my baby cousin Magnolia go up and set a bible on top of the trunk.”

“You did what?” He laughs.

“What? We paid her in cookies.”

“I can only imagine you as a child. So, if not dolls, then what?”

“I had a few, but Mr. Teddy was my main squeeze.”

“Oh, now this I have to hear.” He pauses the movie, and I sip my wine and proceed to tell him about how long before there was a “we,” there was Mr. Teddy.

“He was my first pretend groom when we played wedding. He had hazel eyes, like you.” I blush.

“A bear with hazel eyes, huh?”

“They were brown until I painted them green with some leftover paint my granny had. And honestly, until today, from the sunlight at the coffee shop, I didn’t even realize that was your eye color.”

He just stares at me for a second, so I nervously keep talking. “But I always wished I had an exotic color of eyes like hazel. Instead, I just have plain old blue.”

“There is nothing plain about your eyes, Sunny. They range from blue skies to storm clouds depending on what you’re wearing… and your mood,” he adds with a cough, reaching for his wine.

“That is a very specific description. It’s like you’re a writer or something.” I bite back a smile.

“Or something,” He smiles over the rim of his glass as he takes a drink.

“Okay, ready for the movie?” I ask. “Oh, wait, did you need to check your email or anything?”