“Go out with me?” he asks.
“Just get up.”
“Then answer me.”
“Benson,” I beg.
“Give me an answer,” he says, looking up at me and grabbing my waist.
“Fine.”
“Fine, you’re going to answer me, or fine, you’ll go out on a date with me.”
I lean down and say, “Please get up right now.”
He shakes his head. “Answer me.”
“Yes! I will go out with you!” My heart races. Half from rage but the other half is that he’s drunk.
His face Camdenks into a wide grin. He stands, hugging me with him. My feet lift off the ground. I squeal, grabbing onto his hard shoulders.
“I love to hear it,” he says, walking forward and swinging me around.
“Benson,” I plead, chuckling. “Put me down!”
He sets me on my feet, and I’m lightheaded when I look up at him. His smile is still big, and his lip is still oozing blood.
“You need to get cleaned up.”
He wipes his lip and says, “I forgot I was even bleeding.” He looks down at his hands. “Shit. I’m a mess.”
I nod. “You sure you’re not drunk?”
He grins, looking at me. “I’ll walk you home.”
The rest of the walk is mostly silent. We go down Hawthorne Street to the corner. We turn onto Main. We pass the Vietnamese place — the lights are still on inside, but the chairs are up on the tables, and the cook is behind the register counting out the till. He keeps walking on the roadside of the sidewalk.
We reach my building. I stop on the bottom step. I turn to face him.
“This is me.”
“Can I have your number?”
I lean in and say, “You said you were going to talk to your sister, right?”
He nods, looking down at me.
“If she approves, then you can get my number from her. If not, it looks like we can’t go on that date.”
He looks down at my lips while I look at the swelling of his cheek. “Okay.” A small flirty smile pulls at his lips.
I open the door. “Have a good night, Benson.”
“I’ll be texting you,” he calls out.
I turn around and smile. “Sure.”
The door closes on his smiling face, and my heart is no longer in my chest. I left it back there when that man was on one knee asking me to go on a date.
