Damnit, Angela, you weren’t supposed to be making me feel like this!
I opened the Chardonnay and poured her and me a glass. I then motioned for Angela to follow me. She sat close enough that she could touch me, but not quite so close that it was as if she was sitting on my lap.
“So,” I said when we both sat down. “The last time I saw you, let’s just say things didn’t go well. We kissed, and then you ran off. What changed? Why did you reach out?”
“Getting right to it, huh?” Angela said as she sipped on her wine.
There was something about the way she looked at me right there, though, that made me wonder if maybe I had been reading her wrong. Instead of thinking that she was being guarded, I wondered if she was deliberately trying to test me by going slow. The glimmer in her eye seemed very sexual but also very subdued, like I would only have noticed it if I was paying close attention.
In other words, it was like a pop quiz to see how my patience was.
“After I left, I just thought I had to get the hell out of town. I felt like I had failed in everything I’d come here to do, and so I started looking for jobs. In fact, this morning, the first thing I did was walk into Beth Johnson’s office and tell her I was quitting.”
“Damn!”
“Beth, though, pulled me aside, sat me down, and explained what you and your club do for the town,” she said. “I’m not going to say it was the most easily digestible thing I’d ever heard in my life. I still struggle to understand parts of it. But... ”
She let her words trail off as she sipped her wine. I began to suspect that she had done that on purpose to get me to talk.
It worked pretty well.
“But what? What did she say about us?”
A flicker of a smirk appeared on Angela’s face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” I said, begging as I patted her knee.
I swore her face blushed when I did so, which told me everything I needed to know. I’d suspected she still liked me, but it was always nice to have a confirmation like that before moving forward.
“She said your father and your club have always sought to protect this city,” she said. “Oh, and she said you could be arrogant.”
I got a laugh at that.
“Why is that funny?” she said, although she had a smile when she said it.
Well, you didn’t tell her before, you might as well tell her now.
“This doesn’t leave this room,” I said.
“Well, duh,” Angela said, but it was getting harder and harder for her to maintain her guarded facade. Bit by bit, I was getting her to reveal more of her lustful, interesting side.
“The last few months at the club, the other members have been getting on me for being too aloof and arrogant, and a lot of it, frankly, has to do with the fear of dying. I saw my father die, I saw Shannon die. I don’t want to die. I’m scared to. And I hid that by being cocky and sure of myself in a very public way. But recent events have, well, let’s leave it at they’ve forced me to drop the facade and face my fears.”
Angela nodded, blinked slowly, and then took a sip of her wine.
“I suppose you should still be a little careful not to go into more detail.”
Then, as if for dramatic effect, she finished the rest of her wine in one big gulp.
“But, I have been known to also claim that I don’t remember certain events when I have more wine.”
I didn’t even wait for her to add anything else. I grabbed her glass, kissed her hand in a grand gesture, and headed back to the kitchen, pouring a half-full glass as quickly as I could. It was certainly more than the typical allotment or what a waiter would have poured, but let’s just say I wasn’t trying to get just a tip tonight.
“Smart boy,” she said as she took another sip. “But that’s brave of you to admit, Lane. Beth was, seriously, very complimentary of you.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “But I’ll bet she was more complimentary of you. She probably didn’t want to see you go.”
