I shake my head. “I’m not good at jokes. It’s easy to tell if I’m trying to make one.”
He tilts his head, and his lips do that twitching thing again. Now that I know he means it nicely, I’m starting to really like it. It’s hot like an arrogant smirk can sometimes be, but without any of the drama.
“I’d like to hear your jokes,” he says, almost cryptically. Definitely rhetorically. He doesn’t want to hear a joke now, and he doesn’t realize yet, but he doesn’t want to hear one from me ever. I’ll ruin a punchline every time.
“I was embarrassed,” he says more quietly. “About my hands. Being in a fancy place like this, near a girl like you.”
“A weird girl?”
He snorts softly and shakes his head as he gestures at my clothes. “Clean and classy and just… well put-together and thoroughly authentic. I feel like I should wipe my feet before stepping into your life.”
It’s my turn to snort. “I promise you, I’m not classy. The jokes Idoknow are dirty as fuck; I just can’t tell them right. I haven’t spent enough time in close quarters with rugged, deep-voiced men with big, rough hands, so I lack the necessary experience required to pull off the correct intonation and timing.”
I look him over again,knowingtime with him would help me.
“Can you please put your hands back on the table where I can see them?” I ask politely. “I like them. I’m also delighted by that very hard body of yours having a soft spot for genuinely odd people. If you bring back your hands, I’ll share the tale of my evening’s epic failure. I think it’s probably a story other people would find funny, so it’s about as close to a joke as you’ll get from me.”
As if in a trance, Bates lifts his hands back onto the table with his palms pressed to the surface.
I study them a moment, then encourage him to flip them over so I can lay mine on top and admire the size difference.
“I had a blind date,” I confess quietly. “An acquaintance from school set me up.”
“An acquaintance?”
3
BATES
Lana tosses her golden ponytail over her shoulder and shrugs before returning her soft hands to mine.
We’re on opposite sides of the table, so our hands are the wrong way around for holding the way I want to, but I quite like the way her fingertips lightly brush over the sensitive skin of my wrists. It sort of tickles, in a good way.
“Well, I wouldn’t call her a friend,” she says carefully, as if weighing her words. “I don’t especially enjoy spending time with her, so acquaintance seems more fitting. Anyway, she owed me for covering her workload when she didn’t adequately complete her portion of a group assignment — on account of her being far too popular and sociable to get it done.”
I hide my smile, so she won’t think I’m laughing at her when I just genuinely enjoy the way she talks. “One of those, huh?”
“Iknow,” Lana says in whole-hearted agreement. “I got us an A, so I figured it was fair payment to request that she use her popularity and social skills to set me up on a date.”
My left eyebrow lifts before I can stop it, and Lana studies its position, even after I lower it again.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not very good at flirting, or…” She gestures between us before resting her hands back in my palms as if they belong there. “Social stuff.”
“You’re better at it than you think,” I assure her, unable to keep from running my thumbs over her soft knuckles. Her hands feel strangely right in mine. I’ve never had a woman hold my hands upside-down so unexpectedly and for so long, but she makes it seem totally natural. “I have no complaints so far.”
Her lips curl upward, and her teeth sink into the bottom one as if she can barely handle the praise. “You’re really sweet.”
My cheeks start to warm again.
I don’t know what the fuck this girl is doing to me, but I feel like a big ol’ goofball around her. I slip my hands out from under hers. “I can assure you that I’mnotsweet,” I warn before taking another sip of my beer.
She sucks her lower lip as she considers that, then she emits a soft humming noise that makes my balls ache. “I’ll find out for sure soon enough, I guess. Did you want to hear the rest of the story, or should we go upstairs and find out how un-sweet you are right now?”
I almost choke on my beer, and she gasps.
She clamps her hand over her mouth as if she’s said something wrong. She winces, leans in, and lifts her fingers from her lips just enough so that she can whisper to me. “Was that too forward? I was tryingnotto be as direct as I normally would be, but I think the tequila’s starting to take effect.”
I finish coughing and shake my head. “I like direct. It just took me by surprise, is all.”
