I expected him to tease me about not letting go of his hand, but Dean was uncharacteristically quiet while we drove.

I didn’t let go of his hand until we parked outside the restaurant and got out of the car. I kept watching him, waiting for some gloating comment about the hand-holding, but it didn’t come. He just took my arm again and led me into the restaurant, telling the hostess we had a reservation and following as we were led to a private, candle-lit table in the back.

I took a seat across from him and we thanked the waitress when she poured water for us.

“Wow,” he said, lifting the menu. “Fancy.”

I looked and realized I couldn’t read a damn word of it. Everything was in Italian. I swallowed hard, not wanting to admit I was way out of my depth here, for some reason. I guess I imagined a guy like Dean must eat at places like this all the time. He was probably used to bringing women with him who came from wealthy families, too. I bet they could pick out anything on this menu, order without butchering the pronunciation, and not make fools of themselves. It probably shouldn’t have mattered to me, but I couldn’t help feeling like a fool.

The familiar buzz of electric anxiety was starting to build inside me. My breath was coming faster and my vision was going black at the edges. I was sitting in a calm, quiet restaurant and my stupid fight or flight instinct was kicking in like I was being chased by a sabertooth tiger.

Dean glanced up from his menu. I was ready for him to ask me if I was okay again, but he just leaned over to point at an item on top. “I think this would be a good starter. I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s hard to go wrong with bread. Right?”

I smiled slightly, feeling just a touch better. “Um, yeah. Definitely. Bread is good.”

“If you like sweet, fruity wine, this one is my favorite. I could order us a bottle.”

“Okay,” I said.

“For the main course, I was thinking maybe pasta. There’s a creamy sauce one here, but if you don’t like mushrooms it may be a bit heavy on the earthiness. Or if you’re in the mood for something safe, this one is basically going to just be a tomato sauce with meatballs. The truffle shaved on top is optional, if you’re into that.”

I took a shaky breath. What the hell was this? It was like he’d read my mind, saw what was stressing me out, and magically waved his hands to fix it. Maybe I was just seeing his experience dealing with a little sister who had anxiety. He was so effortless about it, though. So comforting.

For some stupid reason, I felt emotion tickling at the corners of my eyes. “Thank you,” I said softly.

Dean smiled kindly, and then the waitress came back to take our orders. He ordered for us, but made sure to make sure he understood what I wanted before passing the information along to the waitress with flawless pronunciation.