“Am I? I think you’ll find this is more a case of mooning.”
“Mooning?” He does say the cutest things. It could be his accent, though.
“Not the one with the bare arse, obviously.”
“Bare—yeah, don’t do that.” Cuteandirreverent.
“Says the woman who was all about me slapping my cock to the table a few minutes ago.”
“Let’s try and elevate the conversation, shall we?” I reply, like I wasn’t just imagining making it rain fifties à la Lil Wayne while demanding he peel off my panties. With his teeth. Sounds like the sort of thing you might pay an escort to do.
Lady’s choice.
I wonder what a night with him would cost.
Stop thinking about it!His offer isn’t something that requires examination. Or an answer, for that matter. I can just gloss over it. No need to dwell on the fact that he’s into me.Or why else offer? Unless I got it wrong, andlady’s choicemeans I still have to cough up.
Enough already! It’s not as though I’m not gonna ask him for clarification!
“I’d just like to point out,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts, “you’re the one who dragged the conversation into the gutter in the first place. Not that there’s anything wrong with the gutter from time to time.”
I bet he doesn’t do it in gutters. I bet his job is mostly hotel based. Thousand-count linens and fancy champagne cooling in a bucket by the bed. Caribbean islands. Yachts. Six-star hotels, sunscreen, and tiny shorts.
“Now you’re doing it,” he says.
“Do what now?”
“Mooning. You’re pretty good at it.”
“Ha.” My retort comes out as just a breath.I’ve gotta pull myself together.“The time and place for a gutter isn’t now. Or here.” And I should know, given I’ve spent my adult life crawling out of that place. That girl from North Carolina is long dead. No morey’alloryonderorfixin’ to doanything. I coached myself out of all that a long time ago.
“What should we do instead?” So much suggestion in that tone of his.
“For the purposes of this evening, what couples do, I guess.”
“This couple.” He motions a finger between us. “I sense they would canoodle.”
“Sounds like something senior citizens might do.”
“Second base. Sometimes third?” He pulls back as though something has just occurred to him. “Are you trying to entice me into the gutter again?”
“Maybe our relationship is more a meeting of minds. Maybe we’re a couple that talks about art and philosophy.”
“Do you know much about art? Because I don’t.”
“You’re meant to. Well, Nate is. But no one here will ask you questions about art. Unless it’s art as a means of tax avoidance. In that case—”
“I should rely on interpretive dance to confuse them?”
“Maybe feign laryngitis.” My smile dissipates as my gaze drifts across the table, to where the glasses have been mostly cleared.
“You’re worried about them, aren’t you?” he says, following my gaze.
How weird. For a little while, I forgot the reason I’m here. “I just want to get it over with.”
“Do they intimidate you?”
“I can handle them just fine.” Mostly handle them. Or handle most of them.Most of them but one.“I just don’t want to get caught out in a stupid lie. Though most lies are stupid, by my reckoning.”
