“Good guess,” Claire said. “And you even got red, my favorite.”
“I thought about rose´,” I said.
Claire let out a little snort. “Don’t insult me.”
She grabbed the wine and waved one hand towards the couch. “Take a seat. I’ll open this and then we can decide on food.”
I wandered over to her couch and sat down. After a moment of thought, I scooched forward and took off my leather jacket. I was wearing a worn white T-shirt and jeans. I folded my jacket neatly and placed it on the arm of the couch.
I ran my palm over the smooth dark brown leather and gazed at the maps on the wall. I remembered the maps from the other night, but I hadn’t bothered to look at them too closely since I’d been pretty distracted. I scanned them now. California. Europe. A massive world map.
For some reason, the decor made sense for Claire.
She padded across the floor with the open wine in one hand and two glasses in her other hand. I admired her pale little feet as she plopped down on the couch.
“I like your maps,” I said.
“Thanks!” She flashed me a grin that made my heart speed up.
“You travel a lot?” I asked.
“No, but I want to,” Claire said. “I wanna have a massive map with little pins in every place I’ve been.”
It made sense. She was an adventurer at heart. “You from California originally?”
I cringed at the question. I had been eager to skip dating, but somehow I still asked the most typical First Date Question.
“Yeah, up north though,” Claire said. “I fled to LA as soon as I could.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged and tucked her feet up under her, leaning closer as she did. I caught the scent of her shampoo, a combination of mint and florals.
“I wanted excitement I guess,” she said. “I thought LA would be big and glitzy like the movies.”
“And it let you down?” I asked.
Claire frowned. She leaned forward and poured two glasses of wine. “Everything lets me down eventually. But I still get my hopes up about the next thing.”
She handed me a glass and I took a sip. I didn’t usually drink wine, but I hadn’t wanted to show up with a six-pack of Budweisers. Claire would have been game, but it would have felt too much like a night with the brothers. Claire was anything but a leather-clad biker dude.
“What about you?” she asked. “What’s your story?”
“La Playa born and raised,” I said. “Not much of a story.”
“You’re an accountant in a notorious biker club,” Claire said. “You’ve gotta have stories.”
She raised her glass to her lips and peered at me with her massive blue eyes as she took a sip.
“I guess it’s the norm for me,” I said. “The bikers are all I’ve ever known.”
“But why did you join?” she asked.
I frowned at the space in front of me. I hadn’t expected to get deep life questions, but I didn’t mind. From any other chick I was hooking up with, I would have been annoyed. I would have wanted to cut it with the deep history and emotional reasoning and just get to the physical.
But I liked the way Claire asked as if she really wanted to know, just to know. She wasn’t asking to fill the silence or to be polite. She had a burning curiosity, and it was directed at me. I was flattered.
“I wanted a family I guess,” I said.
