She shook her head with a quick roll of her eyes. To anyone else that might have sounded like a complaint, but she knew it was just a bout of exaggeration. He was such a strange man, so odd it was the tiniest bit intriguing.
Before their dinner last week, she had always thought him to be a boring, predictable guy with schizophrenic tendencies, but now she’d seen a different side to him. She had always respected him as a businessman and she had respected him as her boss, but after he’d sat across from her at Giovanni’s, untroubled by the mess of a person right in front of him, she had started respecting him as a person. He wasn’t like other rich people she knew. There were no classes or different social standings in hiseyes and now more than ever she wondered how he had ever lasted three years with Trisha Parker.
The two of them were worlds apart. Trisha was a vain and judgmental socialite and he was so down to earth. He’d sat across from her the entire evening without the slightest ounce of awkwardness. He had even eased the tension and made her feel more comfortable. The joke, however, was completely unexpected and almost surreal. It was nice to see him that way. Refreshing.
When he laughed, his brown eyes lit up and his nose crinkled in the most adorable way, making him…kinda handsome…borderline attractive and—she would never admit this out loud—unbelievably…sexy. Ugh! Barf!
Her skin actually crawled at the thought. Tyler Evans and sexy should not be two things she associated together. Yet at this moment her eyes were strongly disagreeing with her thoughts. Pale orange shirt with no tie, he looked disgustingly handsome tonight. And sexy was definitely the word she would associate with his bottom lip.
He handed her a hot dog semi-wrapped in a serviette. “There’s an unhealthy amount of ketchup on these.”
“Thanks.” She tried to take a bite, but he was right. There was so much ketchup that biting into it would cause it to ooze over on either side. Both of them tried different methods. He angled his head, she leaned forward so the sauce would drop on the floor instead of her dress.
“This is incredibly difficult,” he said, licking a dollop of ketchup from the side of his mouth.
“Quite displeasing,” she concurred.
His lips pulled tight, straining as he tried not to laugh with food in his mouth, his nose crinkling in that cute way. She took another bite, but because of aforementioned cuteness, she didn’ttime her leaning properly and ketchup dribbled down the front of her dress.
“Great,” she muttered as she swallowed.
He handed her a clean napkin. “Here.”
Her hands were a mess as well and that made it even more of a mission to clean herself up.
“You’ve got some in your hair.”
“Where?” she asked, turning her head from side to side to look for the red stain.
“Wait. No. Stop doing that! You’re getting it all over your face.” He grabbed another napkin. “Wait. Hold still…I got it.” He leaned closer and gently grasped her hair with the napkin to clean it off. “Is this a habit of yours? Getting food all over you?”
“It seems to only happen when you’re around.”
His hand moved up to her face, rubbing the napkin over her cheek. “It’s already drying,” he said, looking equally amused and helpless. “You’re a mess.”
“We should get a mom up in here. Get them to do that spit thing they do.”
She noticed the tiniest flinch on his face and, for a second, he looked a little sad. “Yeah,” he whispered and continued cleaning her up, alternating between her face and scraping off flakes from her hair.
His closeness was a little unsettling. His thigh was brushing against hers and his hand was on her face, still trying to peel off the remnants of sauce. He dropped the napkin and used his thumb to rub off the last few icky drops.
Oh, God. That bottom lip was so close and she knew his cologne would linger in her nostrils even after the night was over.
This is Tyler Evans, she told herself. Stop staring at his lips. Stop sniffing him!
“There,” he said, yet his thumb was still caressing her cheek.
His eyes met hers and it was a stilted, loaded and extremely uncomfortable moment because neither of them said anything. They just stared at each other, allowing that discomfort to sink through to bone level. It took a few seconds before he quickly moved his hand away. It was a bit tense after that, mildly awkward. She’d just had analmost-kissmoment with herboss. She didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her, but in a very unexpected and momentary collapse of sanity, she had wanted to kiss him. They suffered through a few more minutes of weirdness before they unanimously agreed it was time to go home. He dropped her off at her townhouse and as soon as she walked inside, she marched straight to the bathroom mirror so she could give herself a good talking to.
“Are you kidding me with this shit? You turn intothisover a sexy pair a lips and a cute smile.” She shouldn’t have said that to herself, because now she was thinking about exactly that. She saw her doe-eyed reflection in the mirror and knew it needed to be done. She slapped herself. Hard. “It’s Tyler, you moron! You don’t kiss guys who have zero charm. You don’t kiss guys who think eating veal iswild.And you sure as fuck don’t kiss guys who use words likedispleasing. Now get that shit out of your head!”
July
Getting the Feels
Jordan put in her earphones and switched on some music. It was month-end and Barbara guffawing in her donkey-like manner was making it extremely difficult to concentrate on her reconciliations. Fucking Mervin!
After ten minutes of listening to all that neighing and snorting, she was ready to choke a bitch. And it wasn’t Barbara.
