With a few more sips, the expression on her face began to relax. Her legs uncrossed and a small snicker slipped from her lips. The hand that wasn’t holding her drink propped her head up as she leaned her elbow on the back of the couch.
The girl from the first night at the bar was starting to come back to me.
“What’s got you laughing?” My gaze shifted from her red lips to her sapphire eyes.
“I just didn’t expect tonight to go like this.”
“Yeah? What were you expecting?”
“Honestly? I was nervous.”
“And you aren’t nervous now?” I’d spent minutes lost in her intoxicating smell that I forgot I was sharing the bottle of wine with her. I took a sip of the buttery chardonnay—not bad. Not usually a big wine drinker, but I wanted to have what she was having.
The first night we met, she drank my go-to drink. Tonight, I’d savor the flavors of the drink she wanted while soaking up every minute of having her near me.
“I guess not…” She shifted in her seat before adding to her thought. “You make me nervous in different ways than what I was feeling earlier.”
Her admission made me smile. “Feel like sharing more about that?”
“You’re really going to make me open up tonight, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “That’s my goal.”
“Out of every job I’ve ever gotten, I’ve never made close to what you paid me for tonight. And then your e-mail came off all … gentlemanly—I honestly didn’t know what I was getting into. It was like experiencing the first day of work all over again.”
“I can understand that. And how do I make you nervous?” I inched closer to her.
“That, right here.” She pointed at me.
“My close proximity to you makes you nervous?”
“Among other things.”
“You like me,” I stated.
When she didn’t deny it, I took a chance and slid closer to her once more, leaving only a couple of feet between us.
“We have a while until dinner, might as well spend this time getting to know each other.”
“I’m really not all that interesting. Why don’t we just talk about you?” Her cheeks turned a light shade of pink, matching the colors of the bar around us.
“That’s not how it works, Bella. I’m an open book, you can ask me anything, but there is so much about you I’m dying to know.”
“Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
Starting off light, I blurted off the first thing that came to mind.
“What was the name of your first pet?”
“Really? My first pet? Is this so you can have the answers to all my deepest darkest security questions?”
She’s got jokes.
“Funny.” I couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out. “Not my intention, but now that you mention it … I’d love to get a peek inside of your Netflix account.”
“Watch out, you might not want to see all the crime documentaries I’ve binged. I’m basically a hit woman for hire.” She flipped her ponytail in a way that said,‘don’t mess with me.’
“Okay, tell me all about your first pet, then your favorite crime documentary.”
