“...me,” I finish.
“I’m not afraid of you.” The right side of his mouth curls into a dimpled grin.
“Not yet.”
His eyes don’t leave mine. He studies me for a moment. His eyes seem to want to smile, but his face stays serious.
“All right, Ms. Waters. What do you do for a living?”
“Torment people’s emotions for pleasure.”
He laughs. “I’m sure, but from what desk?” He studies me again. His gaze takes in my hair, falling in waves over my shoulders, the gold chain around my neck that dips into the plunging neckline of my navy jumpsuit, and my manicured fingers adorned with gold rings.
“I’m kidding. I’m a child trauma therapist,” I answer before his mind gets carried away.
He draws back. “Really?”
“Surprised?”
He nods. “Well, yeah.”
I laugh a little and lean over the table. “I wasn’t always a therapist. I worked in publishing for a few years.”
“Impressive.”
I nod. “It was cool, but hard. I read the slush pile and reading everyone’s raw book concepts really made me realize how much people need therapy.”
He laughs. “That’s true but also a strange way to realize it.”
“I love books. I love to read. But the more I read, the more I realized how much we all need therapy because of filling our time with such deranged stories. I went back to school and got my master’s in Counseling and now I’ve been doing that for a couple of years. Working on my PhD as we speak.”
“You’re way out of my league.” His eyes slide over me like butter on warm bread.
I press my lips together to bring my verbal résumé to a halt. “Anyway, what do you do?”
He scratches his forehead. “Kindergarten teacher.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t look the part?”
“No,” I say, dragging my eyes up and down the length of him in the chair across from me. “Kindergarten teachers wear denim jumpers with school buses embroidered on them.”
“Well, I didn’t want to wear that on our date...” His quick sense of humor is refreshing. “This is my writer-but-mostly-a-teacher-goes-on-a -date outfit.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “You’re a writer?”
He raises his eyebrows and sort of smiles. “I wrote one book. Sold two hundred copies.” He’s being coy and I love it.
“Huh,” I say, genuinely not seeing how this author-slash-kindergarten teacher fits either role. I would have thought athlete or firefighter. But a kindergarten teacher who writes, with dimples, who gave me butterflies on an airplane? Too wholesome considering all the things I wouldn’t mind doing to him.
“Don’t look the part either?”
“Nope.” I grin.
He leans back. “You of all people should know not every author is wearing turtlenecks while gazing out of their cabin window.”
I hold my smile and cross my arms. He’s right. I type-casted him because the truth is that is exactly who my mother used to be before she became famous. The turtlenecks. The whiskey on the rocks. The out-of-date glasses. The hair sticking up on both sides as she trudges downstairs to pour another mug of burnt coffee. A stature that radiates brilliance... or a deranged psychopath. Really, with writers, it’s a very fine line.
