“She was telling us how she met Drew,” Danielle puts in. “They were in a coffee line . . .”
“Right,” I say. “Then he told me my purse was too big.”
Both Peter and Danielle laugh. “I haven’t heard that line before,” Peter says. “Any excuse to talk to her, huh, Drew?”
“Well, yes,” he admits, and there’s a hint of pink across his cheekbones. “And the purse was putting stress on her cervical spine.”
“And then he paid for my latte,” I continue, conveniently omitting to explain that I couldn’t find my wallet. “But he didn’t ask for my number. I even asked him for his contact information, but he didn’t want to give it to me.”
“He was playing hard to get,” Danielle says.
“He must have been,” I agree. “So I didn’t expect to see him again. But later that morning, I was assigned to work as his admin assistant.”
“It was fate!” Danielle exclaims. She’s really getting into this story. “I love it.”
“Well, yes,” I say. “But if you can believe it, Drew tried to tell me he didn’t need an admin assistant.”
“He was probably already planning to ask you out,” Danielle says. “And he knew it would be against HR policy if you worked for him. Right, Drew?”
“Something like that,” he agrees.
Nina inches toward Drew, and he scoots a little closer to me. There’s only an inch between us now, and I can feel the heat radiating off his thigh.
“Anyway,” I continue, “I really needed the job, and I convinced him to give me a shot. I think I did an okay job.”
“You did,” Drew puts in.
“Didn’t you make a cheese tray, Mom?” Nina interrupts.
“Oh, yes, it’s in the fridge,” Danielle says. “Can you grab it, Nina?”
“Of course,” Nina says. “Drew, can I get you another drink? We’ve got an open bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the fridge.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Nina gets up to go to the kitchen, and I half expect Drew to move away from me, but he doesn’t. There’s barely an inch between us now, and the leather sofa is slippery. It feels like the furniture is trying to dump me into his lap.
I brace my feet on the floor to keep from sliding into him, and Drew notices. He leans in, and his breath is warm against my ear.
“I won’t bite if you don’t,” he whispers. “Okay if I put my arm around you?”
When I nod, he drapes his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into him. Now my entire left side is pressed against his right, shoulder to knee, and it’s doing funny things to my brain. He smells musky—a hint of woodsy cologne and clean male sweat.
Nina returns with a tray of crackers and cheese, and her face falls when she sees Drew’s arm around me. I feel a little guilty, which is completely irrational. After all, Drew told her I was his girlfriend, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Nina sets the cheese tray down on the coffee table and resumes her place on Drew’s other side. I feel him tense, and he shifts even closer to me.
And Danielle notices. “Nina, can you check the lasagna, please?” she asks. Both she and Peter look embarrassed on their daughter’s behalf, and with good reason. When you invite a couple for dinner, it’s bad manners to make a play for the man. Nina’s behaving like a lovesick teenager.
But she reluctantly gets up and heads back to the kitchen, and I feel Drew relax.
“Still five minutes on the timer,” Nina calls out. “But the garlic rolls look done.”
“Pull them out, I’ll have a look,” Danielle says, getting up to join her daughter in the kitchen.
Peter stands too. “We might as well go to the table.”
“It smells delicious, Danielle,” Drew remarks as we take our seats.
