Or someone waiting to serve a subpoena.
I feel someone grab my elbow and I turn around, arm cocked back with the training of my kickboxing class and an angry look on my face, getting ready to punch whoever thinks it’s okay to grab a woman in the street.
Chapter Six
I subtly (I hope) slide my arm down from a ready-to-punch position when I see who it is. “Heeeey.”
“Hi.” Beau looks at my fist, which at this point is awkwardly floating off to my side. I quickly pull it the rest of the way down to my side and unclench. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
“Just finishing up some last-minute work.” I hit the button to turn the phone off so he can’t see that the “last-minute work” is really checking Twitter.
Wait. I do follow art world professionals. And I was just reading tweets about a money-laundering scandal in one of the newer galleries.
Damn it. I actuallywasworking after work. Not cool.
I tuck my hand back in his arm and lead him to our destination. “You don’t have to worry about me breaking you by calling a car today.”
“I’m not that bad.” He invalidates his own point by gently guiding me out of the way of oncoming pedestrian traffic.
Amateur. I live here; tourists can go aroundme. “Will you let me pay for dinner then?”
Beau looks at me, looking a little broken at the question and proving heisthat bad. His brow is furrowed and his mouth is hanging open slightly. I try to contain my laugh so he doesn’t think I’m mocking him. I mean, I am. But I do have the veneer of politeness.
“We’ll just figure it out later.” I pat him on the arm. “How have your work meetings been?”
Beau’s face immediately relaxes after the apparently disturbing suggestion that I could pay for his food. Am I supposed to sit in a room, because I can’t open doors to get out of it, and starve until a man comes to feed me?
Absurd.
“Good. I met with some potential investors and some research engineers. But I won’t know how everything went until I make offers.”
“Waiting, the best part of any business.”
“Yeah.” Beau sounds distracted.
“Are you okay?”
“Mmm-hmm. I just don’t understand how this many people can live in one area. There’s so much land in America. Why confine themselves to such a small area?” He keeps weaving in and out of people on the sidewalk. Again, like an amateur.
“Yeah, but is there twenty-four-hour gyro delivery in the boonies? Because that’s very important to me.”
“No. But there’s peace and quiet.”
“Tooquiet. I need people. Even if you’re doing something alone, you’re doing it with hundreds of other people. Getting dinner, seeing a movie, going to a museum. People are always around. So you’re neverreallyalone.”
Beau shivers, I assume in revulsion. “Can’t think around that much noise.”
I pat his arm with the hand already resting on his elbow. “Don’t worry, you’ll be out of the evil city soon.” I say it as a reminder to him and myself. A reminder I can enjoy whatever this is, wherever this goes, without worrying about this lasting longer and always fearing he’ll leave one day. Instead I know he’s leaving.
It’s freeing.
Now that I’ve got some extra brain space since I’m not worrying, I can start wondering if all those muscles he got on the farm are any good in bed.
“Not that there aren’t great people in this terrible place. They’re wrong about their life choices, but still, they’ve got spunk and they look nice in their uncomfortable city clothes.” He looks directly at me with the statement.
I laugh. “That is the most backhanded compliment I have ever gotten.”
Red stains his cheeks. “Yeah. So where are we goin’?” he asks, apparently not aware that I’m imaging doing dirty, devious things to his poor farm body, despite the things that come out of his mouth.
