Sophia felt her smile fade just a little. “Honestly, right now it’s like watching something you built with your bare hands slowly fall apart and not being able to stop it.” Jake’s expression shifted, genuine concern replacing the easy humor. “That bad?” Sophia found herself telling him everything, stuff she hadn’t even told Mia about the investors breathing down her neck and the expansion deadline and the two hundred people depending on her not to screw this up.
“We need to expand by January fifteenth or they pull all funding,” Sophia said, staring into her coffee cup like it held answers. “And the only location that works is this property on Market Street, but the timeline’s so tight and I just keep thinking, what if I can’t pull it off?” Jake reached across the table and squeezed her hand, and the contact was so unexpected and warm that Sophia looked up. “Hey. You’re clearly brilliant and tough as hell. You’ll figure it out.” His confidence in her, this guy who’d known her for all of three hours, made her throat tight.
Harper brought the check and Jake grabbed it before Sophia could react. And when she protested, he just smiled. “You can get the next one.” Sophia raised an eyebrow. “Pretty confident there’s going to be a next one.” Jake’s smile got wider. “Well yeah. I still owe you for the entertainment value of watching your face when you realized I was your date.”
They walked out into the parking lot where snow was coming down heavier now, covering everything in white, and Sophia’s car looked like a frosted cake. “That alternator’s not going to last the night,” Jake said, looking at her car with a mechanic’s critical eye. “I can fix it properly tomorrow if you want. Shop’s closed for Christmas, but I’ll be there anyway doing paperwork.” Sophia hesitated because accepting felt like crossing some line from blind date into something more real. “I don’t want to ruin your Christmas.”
Jake laughed. “Trust me, my Christmas is going to be a six-year-old waking me up at five a.m. to open presents and then watching Elf for the millionth time. Fixing your car would actually be a nice break.” “Can I meet her?” The words came out before Sophia could stop them, and Jake’s expression shifted to surprise. “Lily? You want to meet Lily?” Sophia felt her face heat up. “I mean, only if that’s okay. You mentioned she likes fashion, and that’s kind of my whole thing. But if it’s too soon or weird, just forget I said anything.”
Jake was smiling at her in this soft way that made her stomach flip. “Tomorrow afternoon, say around two. Fair warning though, she’s going to lose her mind when she finds out who you are.”