“Just water. We were working earlier,” I said, and Wick looked at me, then shrugged and nodded.
With a twiddle of her fingers, she hustled away from us toward the kitchen.
Wick leaned his elbows on the table and stared up at the dark crystal chandelier in the middle of the ceiling as lightning flashed in the windows, and I slid my chair closer to his. He smiled at me.
“If this is our date, I’m sorry I look this way,” I said, plucking at my ratty, old gym shirt. The comment was the first thing that entered my mind. I wanted to talk and keep him distracted. Even though he’d said he was fine, I could tell he was far more on edge than usual.
“We might not look fancy, but I like what I see.” He smiled and turned toward me until our knees bumped.
“You’d be one of the few.”
“I don’t like it when you say things like that.” His knee bumped mine again, and he did it a third time before I realized he was nudging me on purpose.
“It’s true.” I shrugged.
“It’s not. You’re a good-looking man.” He pursed his lips. “You know, it took me a lot of years, and quite a few... encounters before I finally realized I’d outgrown my awkward phase.” He stared, and embarrassment had me glancing away.
“I can’t imagine what you’d call an awkward phase. Did you have pimples?”
He hummed. “Acne, braces, the works. I also weighed close to a hundred pounds more than this at one point, and I didn’t look the way I do now when I started sleeping with men.”
My mind spun and I glanced at him. He was so handsome; I couldn’t imagine him ever having looked any other way. “Well, I probably won’t lose weight if it hasn’t happened by this point.”
He knocked his elbow against mine. “I wasn’t suggesting you should. I mean, if you want to, I’ll be here to cheer you on, but you don’t need to do that. I was just trying to say I understand what it’s like not to be friends with the mirror. That little voice in your head spouts nasty things, even when they’re not true and everyone is telling you something else.”
“Everyone isn’t telling me something else.”
He tilted his chin down and stared into my eyes. “I am. I like you, Maurice.”
Our argument was interrupted by the waitress bringing back a tray with everything we’d ordered. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said they had the food ready to go, and I supposed if they were expected to feed a hotel full of people, this was probably the easiest thing to do. I wasn’t about to complain, because the sandwiches looked great, and my stomach growled after all the work we’d done. “If you want seconds, give a shout. We can’t store this stuff properly, so it’s better if it’s eaten than wasted.”
“Thank you,” Wick and I said at the same time, and she laughed, swatting at us with her tray before she went to the next table over to ask if they needed anything. I had the feeling a lot of people would be walking away from the restaurant stuffed to the gills. Wick grabbed a bottle of hot sauce from the center of the table and doused his sandwich and potato, and when he was done, I did the same.
“I don’t want to have that conversation. Discussing the way I look is about my least favorite topic. Can we talk about something else?”
He hummed. “Only if I get to say you’re handsome without you fighting me.”
“Handsome?” I huffed.
He leaned closer, and I shivered when he pressed a kiss behind my ear. In the low light it felt like we might as well be alone in a bedroom. “What do you need to hear to believe me? I’m willing to be honest—I rubbed off this morning thinking about you.”
I choked on nothing—the air—and he rushed to hand me my glass of water. The thunder crashed again, and Wick’s knee nudged mine, but I didn’t think it was on purpose. After I could breathe, I rested my hand on his thigh.
“Okay, please don’t say anything like that. You’ll kill me next time.”
He chuckled. “Should we talk about work?”
“No. This is a date.”
He harumphed. “That’s all I do.”
Laughing, I rubbed my thumb against his leg before taking my hand back. “Don’t you have any hobbies?”
He shrugged. “I like to go to the horse races and those sorts of events. Unwind. See something interesting.”
I nodded and took a bite of my sandwich. The spices were good and the pork melted in my mouth. “I have a boat. I don’t do much with it other than putter around on Lake Émeraude, but occasionally I go fishing.”
“Really?” He blinked at me.
