I honestly couldn’t care less about breakfast at the moment, but I pick up my fork and take a bite anyway. He does the same, chewing thoughtfully.
“You know,” he says after he swallows and wipes his mouth with a napkin, “the editorial and marketing teams are the people who’ll be working the closest with you after contracts are signed. I’ll mostly be in the background.”
“And even then,” I continue with his train of thought, “my work is going to be done remotely. Communication through emails and Track Changes in the Word document. It wouldn’tbe anything like an office romance, because I’ll rarely, if ever, be in the offices of King Publishing.”
His grin is broad and triumphant. “Exactly.” He stabs a piece of French toast with his fork and brings it up to his mouth.
A cry pierces the air right before a seagull dive-bombs out of the sky and swoops between us. The bird’s wings spread and flap as he slows his momentum, and before I know what’s happening, I’m being slapped in the face with feathers. I cough and sputter and raise my arms in defense against the attack. The bird cries again, and it’s a thing of nightmares.
I’m whacked in the head with a wing. A feather jams itself in my mouth. There’s a scream of my own crawling up my throat. I’m pretty sure my hands are batting at the air in front of my face like I’m shadow-boxing in a cat fight. Everything is feathers, a horrible stench, and utter chaos. Then, as quickly as the seagull appeared, it’s flying away into the wide-open sky with a fork full of French toast clutched in its feet like a trophy.
My eyes are wide in disbelief as I stare across the table at Julien. His hair is a wild mess on top of his head, and he looks like he’s just gotten out of a scrap in a back alley somewhere. A goop of white bird feces drips down the shoulder of his tailored suit jacket, while a fluffy down feather dances a tauntingly slow descent in front of his face. He has such a horrified, dazed expression on his face that I’m snapped out of my shock and have to choke back from laughing out loud.
“Did you see that? That seagull just flew in from nowhere. Swoop. One minute I’m eating breakfast, and the next minute there’s a giant bird in my face.” He makes a hand motion that’s supposed to portray the seagull diving in kamikaze style, but his gaze is unfocused.
I get the impression that he’s not necessarily talking to me. More like verbally trying to work out what just happened.
“Its beady little eyes looked into my soul. And then it screamed in my face. And stole my fork.” He blinks, comingback to himself, then looks at me. “What in the world was that?”
I shake my head, clamping my lips shut, but my shoulders are shaking from silent laughter.
“It was this close!” He holds his palm in front of his face, only about two inches from his nose.
“And it left you a present.” I point to the white stain on his coat.
His lips curl in disgust. “I would like to know,” he says as he slips his arms out of the jacket, “what I did to the avian community for them to despise me so much. I’m starting to think they have a personal vendetta against me.”
I pretend to consider his comment seriously, but it’s getting really hard to keep the laughter inside. “First the little bird in the mud and now this. Did you do something to upset the Godfeather?”
“The Godfeather?” He quirks a brow at me as he tries to suppress his own smile.
“Yeah. Did you leave the gun and take the birdseed?”
He snorts a bark of laughter. “They made me an offer that I refused.”
I’m smiling wide now. “What offer was that?”
“A cracker. But in my defense, I thought they’d gotten the wrong guy. They’d called me Polly.”
I laugh out loud, and he lets his grin emerge unrestrained.
A second later, his body does a little shiver. “Okay, I just remembered some Alfred Hitchcock scenes. Don’t think any less of my manhood, but how about we finish this conversation inside?”
I laugh again and gather the plates. “After you.”
Once we’re back inside the room, he takes the plates from me and places them outside the door for the cleaning service to pick up. When he turns back around, there’s a shift in the atmosphere. The levity from the thieving seagull and ourGodfather/Godfeather jokes has been erased, replaced with a tension I can feel behind my naval.
We sort of just stand and stare at each other for a moment. Everything we’ve said and have yet to say hangs in the space between us. The desire for a physical connection, a grounding touch, propels my feet forward. I stop in front of Julien and raise my gaze, my eyes snagging on an excuse to brush the pads of my fingers across his skin. I lift my hand but pause and hover near his head.
“May I?” I ask in a whisper.
He nods silently, his gaze intent on my face.
It’s a guise, me running my fingers through his hair to fix the dishevelment the seagull caused. The truth is, I’ve wanted to do this for a while. I just haven’t felt like I had the right. I’m still not sure that I do, hence the need for an excuse.
I pay particular attention to each strand of hair, never allowing my gaze to slip lower than the small cowlick that causes a wave of silver hair to rise and dip to his forehead. If I look any lower, then I’ll be confronted by whatever expression is on Julien’s face. And no matter how mature I claim to be, I’m not sure I’d know what to do with that sort of information at the moment.
“There,” I finally say when his hair is back into a semblance of style. I take a step back and fill my lungs. “That’s better.”
