“Not keep you,” Natalie stuttered. “I mean . . . ”
“I know.” Colt winked. “But I’d prefer Rusty keep me on detail of a beautiful woman over some of the other jobs he has lined up for me.”
“You compliment every one you’re assigned to protect?”
“I guarded a war criminal once in a military prison,” Colt said. “I did not compliment him. Although, he didn’t speak English, so even if I tried . . . ”
Natalie startled, jumping back as her foot was about to step off the curb onto a crosswalk. Colt bumped into her.
“What is it?” He gripped her arm protectively.
Natalie exhaled. “Nothing. Sorry. Saw someone with Gavin’s haircut.” The light changed and she stepped out of the way of the moving cars.
“He has you shook up pretty well,” Colt said.
“Nothing a bottle of wine won’t fix.” Natalie wanted to believe that was true, but her heart was beating too fast, betraying how scared she really was.
“Let’s get you one. On Rusty.” Colt patted his bag. “I can use the company card for client dinners.”
Natalie considered the bagged salad and gluten-free crackers she’d planned to eat for dinner, a thin stream of low-fat vinaigrette for flavor. She’d skipped lunch because of all the time she’d wasted in the morning scrolling her phone, and her stomach ached for food. More, she ached for Colt to touch her again, anywhere. When had a guy as hot as him ever offered to take her to dinner?
“Okay,” she said. “If Rusty’s buying.”
“What do you like?”
Natalie’s mind went blank, as though she’d never heard of food before in her life. “I don’t know. Anything. What are you in the mood for?”
“There’s a place I like nearby—barbecue almost as good as in Texas. I haven’t had a chance to explore much of their menu yet, but they know their way around a brisket. You said you don’t do bread. How about chicken and a salad?”
Natalie nodded in agreement. “I’m not against bread. I’m just trying to eat more healthy.”
“Don’t tell me bread isn’t healthy,” Colt said. “You’ll break my heart.”
“Wouldn’t want to do that.”
Colt led her into a neighborhood with bright awnings unfurled over deli and café windows and shops with bold letters advertising vintage records, boutique jewelry, and potted plants. “Rusty brought me here when I first got to the city. Knew I’d be homesick.” He patted his stomach. “Nothing like quality food to put you at ease.”
Natalie wished she felt the same; she’d been uneasy around food since the time one of the boys in her eighth-grade gym class told her she had “fat thighs” and “jiggly tits.” Natalie had been the first girl in her ballet class to need a bra, and as the other girls grew taller and leaner, Natalie felt like she only grew wider. Even now, the threads of her scrubs strained against her breasts, the extra fabric obscuring her pinched waist as it fell. She took up other dance genres: hip hop, contemporary, jazz, and got parts in school musicals. Still, she’d have traded almost anything for a body like that of her friends who left high school to study ballet at prestigious art schools. Sometimes, she rolled back the IKEA rug in her apartment, took out her toe shoes, and danced point on the parquet floors.
“Did the army provide good food overseas?”
“The army isn’t known for its kitchens,” Colt said. “You want real food, go work on a nuclear sub. Here it is.” He held the door to the restaurant, Smoke & Spit, open for her, his hand hovering over her back as he guided her inside. Her skin tingled where he almost touched.
The restaurant was filled with picnic tables covered in checkered cloths. Waiters carried butcher-paper lined trays heaped with slices of meat, paperboard boats filled with butter-sheened buns or French fries, pickles on plastic toothpicks, and sweating bottles of beer to tables. The dining room smelled sweet and smokey, and despite the early hour, tables were already crowded with men and women in blazers and beanies, their coats draped at their sides over the picnic benches.
“Yep. This definitely looks like Rusty’s kind of place,” Natalie said. “He likes to indulge in meat from time to time.”
A hostess led them to a picnic table and placed menus in front of them.
“It’s Texas style,” Colt said. “Best style.” He set his menu down and pushed it aside, then held up a finger to beckon the waiter back for drinks.
Natalie scanned the menu “You’ll have to give me a recommendation. I know my way around a seafood menu . . . but barbecue? I’m a lost cause.”
“Any good seafood around here?”
“Sushi. Gourmet fish places. Oyster bars. But I’ve yet to find a place in the city that does a real, gulf-style shrimp boil,” Natalie confessed.
“Sounds like a missed business opportunity to me. Maybe you should open up a restaurant of your own.”
