“Ooh, what’s in that? I was just going to get the special but I like riesling.”
“Chicken, mushrooms, bacon, onion, and garlic in white wine cream sauce,” I read off the menu to him.
He hung his tongue out of the side of his mouth like a drooling dog. “Mmm that sounds delicious. But Steak Diane…” Reeling his tongue back in, he regarded me out of the corner of his eye. “How do you feel about sharing?”
I was normally not one for plate-sharing - if I ordered it, I wanted to eat it - but the puppy-dog eyes Jamison was directing at me were hard to fight. I supposed I could always make up the difference to my stomach with cheesecake at the end of things. “I can live with that,” I caved. “But I get the first bite of my own food, and vice versa.”
“Fair.” He took another sip of his drink. “I’m just glad you’re willing to share.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “It’s not as if we haven’t shared a little too much in life already. What harm could it do other than leave me a little hungry?”
That forced a snort out of Jamison, which then turned into a giggle. “Did you honestly just tell me you’re ok sharing your pasta with me because we’ve already exchanged bodily fluids? You kinky boy.”
“What?” I blinked. “How is that kinky? It’s like…the opposite of kinky.”
He tutted at me teasingly. “First sex furniture, then referencing bodily fluid exchange…you’re a dirty boy, admit it.”
There was no way he could know about…thatsort of thing,I assured myself silently. Nevertheless, I felt myself turning red and cursed my redhead complexion. Unable to think of anything else to do or say, I turned all my attention to turning the straw in my drink and said nothing.
Just as the silence was becoming uncomfortable, the bartender plopped a basket of bread between us. My hand shot out and clutched at the nearest roll desperately. The soft bread collapsed under my grip and I winced.
“Hey.” A hand touched my arm and I looked over to find Jamison studying me. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Sometimes I have a big mouth.”
“No, it’s ok, I didn’t…I don’t…” I tried to ease my grip on the increasingly mangled bread and stifled a sigh at finding that it was no longer roll-shaped. “I just, uh, am not that great at conversation. Or teasing. Not that I’m saying you were being teasing,” I added quickly as I realized I might be reading too much into things. “I just…”
He stroked my arm gently where he’d been touching it. “Breathe, big guy. It’s fine. I was teasing you but I didn’t realize it would freak you out. I’ll stop.” Great, now he thought I was some sort of delicate flower who couldn’t take a joke.
Very carefully, I put the smashed roll on my bread plate and reached for the butter. Something to do with my hands was probably a good thing at this point. “I’m sorry for being weird,” I mumbled into my chest.
He pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “You’re not weird, you’re my friend. Your brain just works differently. You get to be different than me.”
My heart thumped. He’d called me his friend again. At this point, I was starting to believe him. I took a bite of bread, chewed, and swallowed to buy myself some time. “Sorry,” I finally said again. “I mean, not sorry that I’m different. Sorry that I’m all uptight and you keep having to reassure me. I’m sure that’s not what you planned to do with your Saturday afternoon when you asked me to meet up.”
His serious face relaxed into a smile at my words. “No, it’s not. I planned to feed you, because apparently you’re not so good at doing that yourself.”
I flushed again. “I just got sidetracked -”
“- by the sex bench, I know. Now that I have you here, I want to hear more about the sex bench and the other sex furniture you’ve built. I never really thought about where that stuff came from, but yeah, somebody’s gotta build it and I bet you can’t get it off Amazon.”
“Actually…” Yes, I’d done some comparison shopping on various online retail sites when deciding how to price my work. Not that cheap knockoffs on Amazon or at Walmart told me a whole lot about what handcrafts should cost, but it was a starting point. And yeah, my browser history was definitelyinterestingafter that.
“Seriously?” he demanded. “But I bet it’s, like, Chinese crap that falls apart the first time you lean on it, right?”
I shrugged. “That, I don’t know. I’ve never bought any furniture off Amazon, sex or otherwise.”
“Ready to order?” the bartender broke in, popping up between us and making me jump. Had he heard us talking about sex furniture? In the middle of a public restaurant? He probably thought we were creeps!
I started stammering, but Jamison took over smoothly. “I’m going to get the Steak Diane, and he’s going to have the -” He looked over at me and raised his eyebrows in question. I managed a confirming nod. “He’s going to have the Chicken Riesling. And can I get another dirty martini?”
Was it weird that I’d just let another guy order for me, and we weren’t even on a date? In my head, that registered as very much a date thing, and to a lesser extent a control thing. But Jamison didn’t strike me as a control freak or a Daddy, and I was pretty damn sure this wasn’t a date.
Jakob took down our orders with alacrity and disappeared again. Jamison leaned his chin on his fist and studied me for a long moment. “Did you build all your own furniture?”
“Me?” I shook my head. “No. That would have taken forever. I have a few Ikea pieces, the same as anyone else. My bed frame was actually my parents’ before they upgraded. I did make my kitchen table and chairs, though. And my coffee table. And, well, some bookshelves. But those are easy.”
“Easy.” Jamison snorted. “Nothing about handcrafts is easy, whether it’s furniture-making or knitting.”
That was oddly specific. “Do you knit?” I asked curiously.
