Jake was sweet, once you’d gotten through to him in an effective manner.

Not so sweet that it would give you a headache or rot your teeth, but sweet enough to make that warmth bloom comfortably in your chest any time he looked at you the right way.

Which was often. He always looked at you the right way. Sometimes it’s a dark, heated gaze, and other times it’s something softer.

Like tonight.

You’d been having an off day, things just seeming to get under your skin a bit more than they probably should on a normal evening—he’d noticed from the minute you walked in the door.

Which is why, now, he’s taking you for a drive—something he says always clears his mind when he’s in his own head too much—at whatever late hour it is. It’s dark, the light pattering of rain on the windshield and the hood of his car creating a wonderful backdrop of white noise.

He’d told you many times how relaxing going for a drive was for him, and you’d been skeptical. Now that you’re truly experiencing it, though, you get it.

You can barely even remember what you had been upset about.