“Heineken.” George holds up the familiar green bottle to show me, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“Yes. Thank you.” I reach for it, but he doesn’t hand over the bottle immediately. Instead, he sets the top of it against the corner of the desk and hits the cap hard with the heel of his hand.
Opening the beer in a move as smooth as when a guy punches a jukebox and it starts to play a bop.
As George passes the beer my way, his gaze dips, then flies up to the ceiling, and I quickly examine myself to make sure the neck of his shirt hasn’t gaped open to reveal one of my boobs.
Nope. But the luxurious fabric is doing nothing to hide how hard my nipples are.
Heat rushes through my cheeks as I grab the beer and try to casually cross one arm over my chest.
He’ll just assume I’m cold, I reassure myself.He has no way of knowing that his ability to open a beer with his bare hands made my nipples stand at attention.
Besides, his nipples are out in the open, so he has no room to throw shade.
George opens another bottle using the same panty-melting move,then settles in the desk chair that doesn’t look stable enough to support his jacket, much less a full-grown man.
“Is that how cavemen opened their beer?” I ask before taking a deep gulp of mine.
The corner of George’s mouth twitches.
“Yeah. I haven’t evolved much.” He stares at the label of his drink like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room, then pulls out his phone.
See, nipples?He doesn’t even find you interesting.Relax, already!
“The weather system should pass around four a.m. it looks like.” He holds up his phone, app open to show the radar. “We can get up at first light and go.”
“Cool. Great. Sounds good.” I take a large swallow of my beer and shift my bare legs against the rough sheets. But I’ll take low thread count over wet fabric any day of the week.
“I’m sorry,” George offers. “For getting you stuck here.” He tilts the bottle up, and I watch his throat for each swallow. The way the muscles flex and relax has me shifting again.
“It’s fine,” I mutter. And I eye the bag of beer, knowing I’m going to want another with how fast I’m guzzling this one, but unsure if I can survive the way he opens them.
The silence in the room, broken only by the pounding of the rain and an occasional roll of thunder, is oppressive. Not one of those comfortable silences where we’ve made an unspoken, mutual agreement to simply exist in each other’s space. This is a tense, how-could-this-night-get-worse? silence.
“Should we watch TV?” I gesture with my beer toward the ancient technology, wishing I wasn’t too wired to fall asleep. Plus, it’s still kind of early in the evening, only the thick storm clouds darkening the world outside our window.
In answer, George reaches a long arm out and flips on the TV.
Static. On every channel.
So much for that.
After flipping through every option twice, George shuts it off.
The weighted silence is back, and I’m out of ideas. Gone is the levity from our dinner at the diner.
“I’ve got cell service…” He holds up his phone again. “We could stream something.”
Now this piques my interest. Mom, Marge, and I only have Net-flix, which isn’t a bad option. Plenty of awesome movies and shows. More than we could consume in a lifetime.
But it doesn’t have a particular show I’ve been dying to see.
“Which services do you have?” I lean forward eagerly, wanting to explore his phone. Not that he’d give me free rein to do that.
Or so I thought.
George swipes in his code, then he stands from his chair, crosses the room, and offers his device to me.
