“Simone is so excited. She’s been bugging me for a phone for ages. Auntie Lu to the rescue.”

The waitress delivered their salad and pizza, along with another round of drinks.

Grayson served them both slices of pizza and took a bite of his. So good. No pizza he’d tried anywhere could compete with this. “Did you know about the phone?”

Emma nodded. “Lucy talked to me about it beforehand, and even though I still feel she’s too young, most of her friends already have them. Like I said to Simone, there’ll be rules.”

“Block the Internet for a couple more years. That’s key.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Lucy already did that.”

“Another thing I heard my colleagues in Boston talk about is making her think she has a limit on texts, like two-fifty a month or something reasonable like that.”

“Even though she has unlimited texting?”

“Yeah, because then she learns to control herself and work within her limits.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“I had a work friend whose teenage daughter sent a hundred thousand texts in a month—before he realized they should’ve gotten unlimited texting. That cost something like two thousand bucks. Talk about a shocker.”

“Yikes. Can you imagine sending a hundred thousand texts in one month?”

“The dad said she had to be texting every second of her day, even when she was in the shower, to get to that total.”

“That’s funny—but not funny, too. This pizza is amazing, by the way.”

“I’m glad you like it. It’s my favorite.”

“I can see why.”

Grayson glanced out the window to a total whiteout. “Damn, look at the snow.”

“Wow, it’s really coming down.”

“Should we take the rest to go?”

“Probably,” she said with visible reluctance.

Grayson was glad to know she was in no rush to end their date either.

Hannah, Nolan, Cameron and Will stopped by to say good-bye as they headed out.

“Drive carefully, you guys,” Grayson said.

“Do you still remember how to drive in this crap, city boy?” Will asked, grinning at his cousin.

Grayson flipped him off.

The four of them went out the door laughing.

“Don’t listen to him,” Grayson said. “I’ll get you home safely.”

“I never doubted you for a minute.”

Pleased by her faith in him, he paid their check and held her coat, watching as she scooped up her blonde hair and let it fall in silky waves down her back. He had to resist the urge to run his fingers through it—at least for now. Then she pulled a knit cap from her pocket and plopped it on her head. When she turned to smile at him, he felt like he’d been sucker-punched. She was gorgeous, sweet, funny, sexy as all hell—and she lived six hours from him.

That last one had him sagging under the weight of the impossibility of this situation.