He smirked. “I tried a few times, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I have a friend who’s permanently attached to her knitting needles - I’m pretty sure she has a whole room in her house devoted to knitting supplies - and she’s tried to teach me, but fuck, that shit ishard. I kept making knots instead of stitches. I suspect I’d be just about as good at making furniture as I would be at knitting.”
I fought off a mental image of Jamison tangled in a ball of yarn like a naughty cat. Mental-Jamison might have been wearing cat ears, too. What, they were cute on him!
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why does me saying I suck at something make you smile likethat?” he demanded.
“Uh.”
“Hmm?” Shit, his right eyebrow was going up. He meant business.
“I was picturing you as a cat playing with yarn,” I admitted quickly, then stuck my hands up by my head and wiggled my fingers like cat ears, like the idiot I was. “It was adorable.”
He blinked, squinted, and took another sip of his drink before looking back up at me in apparent consternation. “I’m gonna be honest, I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that.”
Of course he didn’t. Who said things likeI was imagining you as a catto a near-stranger? “Let’s…” I winced. “Let’s just pretend I never said that.”
“Can I still keep the mental image of you acting out kitty ears, though?”
“I’d rather you didn’t?”
He grinned. “Too late, it’s embedded in my consciousness. Foreverrrrr. I’ll be on my deathbed, barely breathing, and I’ll start laughing at the memory.”
Eh, could be worse. He could be laughing atme. Or just up and leaving. “Glad to be of service,” I deadpanned, eating the rest of my roll in one big bite.
Jamison eyed me as I chewed and swallowed, but didn’t say anything until my mouth was clear again, at which point he said, “I’m impressed. I didn’t think you could swallow all that at once.” A pause, and our eyes met as we both realized what he’d said at the same time.
We cracked up. Nothing like an accidental double entendre to break the awkward ice. “You…” I gasped through my laughter, “you have no idea what a real man can swallow.”
“Just saying,” he cackled back, “you have more than a mouthful over there. Can confirm.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Oh my god.” I threw a hand over my eyes. “Can we not…”
“Moreeee…than a mouthfullll….” he sang at half-volume.
I looked around the room, but surprisingly, no one was staring at the crazy men at the bar. “You’re insane,” I informed him.
“You laughed too, big guy!”
“Well,” I protested, “I didn’t say I was any saner than you. I’m having this conversation, aren’t I?”
His laughter died slowly, and he met my eyes. “And I’m glad you are.” He reached out to pat my hand, gamely ignoring the smear of butter I belatedly noticed I’d left on it. “I’m glad you agreed to meet me. I kinda have the impression you don’t get out much. And maybe that people are hard for you.”
He’d nailed it, but how? I thought I’d been doing a pretty good job of peopleing when it came to being around him. We’d met at a bar the first night, after all. And we’d been texting semi-regularly. I’d offered to teach him how to braid, for god’s sake! “I, um.” I cleared my throat. “I’m mostly a homebody.”
“Well.” He smiled. “I imagine Curie needs your attention a lot of the time.”
It was kind of him to pretend that the cat gave the slightest shit where I was at any given moment. “Yeah,” I agreed automatically, then shook my head. “Nah. She doesn’t really care. I mean, she likes to hang out with me, but she’s fine when I’m out, too. Mostly I just find going out stressful and uncomfortable. I mean,” I added hastily, “I can do it. I’m not agoraphobic. But home is so…comfy, comparatively.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, you’ve been doing a good job peopleing with me. I know I can be a lot, and you haven’t runscreaming yet, even after the way we met, so I respect the hell out of that. And you’ve been nothing but classy even when I’m…not.”
I frowned at that. He thought he was classless? “Hey, you’re notnotclassy. You just make a lot of jokes.”
“About sex furniture,” he pointed out. “That make people like you uncomfortable.”
Was heembarrassed? I immediately felt bad about making him feel that way. “Hey, no,” I said, picking up another roll - with a gentler grip this time - and fiddling with it. “You don’t make me uncomfortable. You make me feel weirdly comfortable most of the time, actually. I mean, considering how we barely know each other, and The Mistake -”
“™,” he interjected.
“™,” I agreed gamely. “Anyway what I mean is that just because I, like, blush or forget how to human doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. It just means I’m a redhead and not great at conversation.”
