to get the blood flowing back to his other head. He settled for, “Do they still live in Alabama?”
“No.” Ella shook her head. “Gran died when I was in high school, and Gramps passed about five years ago.” She smiled at the people in the picture fondly.
“And your parents? Are they still down there?”
“My parents both died when I was very young. My grandparents raised me.” She didn’t sound sad, only resigned, like someone who’d come to terms with the loss long ago.
Belatedly he remembered Melanie mentioning that to him before. Unable to think of anything less lame to say, he settled on, “I’m sorry.”
She nodded and placed the picture back on the shelf where he’d found it. “Are you ready?”
“Ready.” He cleared his throat. “You look fantastic, by the way.” He was pleased to see that his ability to talk sensibly was coming back. “Well worth the wait.”
Salvador’s was still the place to see and be seen, and Ella got more than one envious glance from the other women there. Matt just seemed to attract stares from beautiful women, but, to his credit, he did nothing more than return an uncommitted smile. He proved early on he was more than just arm candy and a nice guy: he was a charming and fun date, as well. Their table had an amazing view, situated so neither of them had a back to the window. The chairs were close enough to each other to create an intimate feel while still giving them room to eat.
They ate ridiculously fattening food and talked easily about the wedding and people they both knew. It was, she realized, the best “date” she’d been on in a very long while. And it had been a long while, indeed. She and Stephen had parted ways over six months ago in the ugliest way imaginable. It had been a new low—even for her. But then the wedding plans kicked into high gear and the job from SoftWerx came through, leaving her with little time to think about anything else, much less men.
Just enjoy this for what it is.
As they sat finishing their wine, Matt asked her, “How did a girl from Alabama end up in Chicago? I thought Southerners were allergic to snow.”
“We are.” She laughed and swirled her wine in her glass. “First you have to understand something about kids who grow up in lower Alabama. Their entire teenage years are preoccupied with one thing—getting the hell out of Alabama. I wasn’t any different. So when Northwestern offered me a track scholarship, I jumped on it and moved up here.”
“That explains those amazing legs of yours.”
Ella blushed at the unexpected compliment. He thinks my legs are amazing. She self-consciously uncrossed and recrossed her legs under the table. When she did, she accidentally slid one leg against his. He didn’t move, so she simply enjoyed the pressure of his leg against hers as she sipped her wine.
“Are you fast?”
“What?” She choked on her wine and moved her leg away from his quickly, bumping the table hard as she did. Glassware rattled.
“On the track. Are you still fast?”
Oh, she thought, relieved. “I never was really fast. I ran cross-country. I’m a bit out of shape now, but I do still run for fun.”
“Ah, stamina instead of speed. That’s a good thing.”
Was he flirting? That kind of put a new twist on the evening if he was. Her flirting skills were a bit rusty these days…
“Did you meet Melanie at Northwestern?”
The change in subject jarred a little, but she welcomed it. “We were roommates our freshman year. We lived together all through undergraduate school, then got an apartment together.”
“You two are an unusual pair. You’ve got kind of a yin and yang thing going.”
That caused her to laugh. “I’ve never heard it put quite that way before. But, yeah, we make a good team. Things were rough at the beginning, though. Melanie was out all night majoring in boys and beer, and I had to be up early for track practice. Unfortunately—or in our case, fortunately—University Housing didn’t allow for room switching until a few weeks into the semester. By then we’d worked it out. I guess we’ve rubbed off a bit on each other over the years—filling in the holes, so to speak. It’s going to be really tough to get used to not having her around all the time.”
“Why move home now?” He relaxed back in his chair and casually draped an arm across the back of hers as he asked. The closeness of his body put hers on high alert, and she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise to attention.
Just focus on the conversation. “Nine Chicago winters too many. Anyway, after spending all those years wanting to get out of Alabama, it didn’t take all that long for me to realize how much I missed it. With Mel getting married and moving out anyway, the job offer seemed like fate or something. Moving while she’s on her honeymoon keeps the goodbyes from being all weepy.”
Matt offered her the last of the wine, and she held out her glass. Full of good food and enjoying both the view and the company, she wasn’t in any hurry for dinner to end. He didn’t seem in a rush, either, so she relaxed back in her chair, enjoying the slight weight of his arm against her.
“So what do you do with those degrees in computer science, Ella Augustine Mackenzie?”
The shock of hearing her middle name nearly caused her to choke on her wine again. Then she remembered pulling her degrees out from storage under the couch last week for packing and leaning them against the wall. He must have seen them earlier. “Hey, Augustine’s a family name.”
Matt snorted.
“What’s your middle name, hotshot?”
“Matthew.”
“Oh.” So much for that witty retort. “What’s your first name, then?”
“William.” A smug smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“Lucky you. Well, William Matthew Jacobs, until two weeks ago, I was a software designer. Two weeks from now, I’ll be the design team head at SoftWerx.”
Matt let out an impressed whistle. “I’ve heard of them. Congratulations.”
Pride bubbled up inside her. She’d been so caught up in the wedding, she hadn’t had time to fully adjust to the idea of her success. “Your turn. How’d you end up in Atlanta?”
Matt sipped at his wine and signaled the server for the check. “Strictly business. I, too, went to college out of state—Ohio State, actually—but for different reasons than you. Did Melanie tell you I have five brothers?”
“Actually I’ve heard quite a bit about the Jacobs six-pack. I’ve even met a few.”
“There you have it. I was tired of being ‘that youngest Jacobs boy.’ All five of my brothers stayed around here, so I had to be different and go out of state. I ended up at Penn for law school and got in with a local firm. They opened a new office in Atlanta two years later, and I was sent there.” He shrugged as if his job was nothing—the law equivalent of flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
