‘And right there, between turkey and pecan pie, I realised what an idiot I’d been. She was between jobs when we met. She knew my last name; she saw an opportunity. It didn’t hurt that she found me attractive, I guess.’
‘I mean, who wouldn’t?’ Lexi is trying to lighten the mood a little, to get him to smile. It works.
‘I’m quite the catch.’
Lexi wants Sam to feel hugged and understood, the way he made her feel just now. But she also likes this lighter mood. It’s a delicate balance, this first-date business, actually, even and especially when you already know how the other person kisses. When you really,reallydon’t want to mess it up. But she’s got dessert to get him to laugh. She says what she really wants to.
‘I’m sorry she treated you that way. You deserve to be loved for who you are.’ And then, because she’s had just enough wine, she keeps going. ‘Not for who your family is, and not for what you can achieve.’ She hasn’t, though, had quite enough wine to add that she’ll love him like that if he’ll let her. She hopes he can read it between the lines.
‘Thank you,’ he says, putting his cutlery into the ‘I’m done’ position on his plate. ‘She really broke my heart, you know?’ Sam looks up and right at Lexi, into her eyes. There might be an implication here, too:You better not do that to me. I’m not sure I’d ever recover.‘That’s why I struggled afterwards. I wanted to find someone else, but I was hurting, so I self-sabotaged. Hence my reputation around DC, you know?’
Lexi nods. She does know. She just didn’t know thatheknew. She reaches for the last remainingfriteand waits for more.
‘This thing...’ He points at her, then at himself. ‘It’s not a rebound thing. I really—’
And that, of course, is when the waiter comes to ask them if they want dessert.
‘We’ll take a look at the menu,’ Lexi says quickly, more to get him out of the way than anything else.
‘I got some therapy,’ Sam says, taking another tack, obviously not quite ready to say what he’d been about to say. Admitting he’d had therapy might be an even bigger deal for this hard-ass businessman, who, Lexi is realising, is actually a soft-hearted creative type who’s had to build a shell around himself. ‘That’s how much I want this to work.’
‘Thank you for telling me that,’ she says, taking his hand across the table again. ‘I know it takes a lot to make yourself vulnerable like this.’
Emotions and vulnerability spill out of Lexi every chance she gets, but she knows it’s not like that for everyone. Especially Sam. She’s touched.
‘You’re welcome,’ he replies. ‘Now what do you say we skip dessert and get out of here?’
Lexi thinks briefly and with a tinge of regret about the Belgian chocolate fondant, the way the homemade ice cream melts into it, creating a puddle of deliciousness. But even so, it’s a no-brainer.
‘I would like that very much,’ she tells Sam.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Is there any walk like the walk back after a date, when you both know exactly what’s about to happen? Despite Lexi’s preference for all things Capitol Hill over all things Navy Yard, she finds herself wishing that they’d chosen a restaurant closer to Sam’s apartment.
On the one hand, the twenty-minute walk gives her a little time for her dinner to go down. She’s eaten more than she normally would before a session of what she’s hoping will be vigorous exercise: another reason Belga maybe wasn’t the best choice. Her self-control needs some work all around, and, in her defence, she knowsit.
She finds herself wishing, for example, that she had been a little more mysterious, a little less obvious. Still, it doesn’t seem to have put Sam off. Lexi is quiet now, though: the walk is more than long enough for her to say something stupid and ruin the moment. And if she has to go one more night without consummating this not-quite-relationship, she’s in danger of destroying her vibrator from overuse.
‘You okay?’ he asks her as they walk down 8th Street hand in hand.
She’s enjoying the night, and she’s also really nervous. ‘Of course,’ she tells him.
‘Because it’s totally fine if you don’t want to come back to my apartment.’
Maybe he’s teasing; maybe he’s joking. But his tone, tender and low, tells her otherwise; he’s being a gentleman. Making sure he has not just her tacit consent, but her explicit, enthusiastic approval.
‘Oh, I definitely do.’
‘That’s a relief.’ He laughs, maybe nervously. It’s good that they’re both nervous, Lexi hopes. It shows that this means something to both of them.
‘I’m just making sure I don’t say something stupid to scare you off me in the next few minutes.’
‘You haven’t been able to do that for the last few months. I think you’re safe for the next fourteen minutes.’
‘Well, except you hated me a few months ago, Lexi points out.’
‘No, I didn’t. I never hated you.’
