Page 25 of Flirting with 40

A friend. Okay. So, yeah, mixed message central.

“No one will ever believe you’re my boyfriend.”

“They just did,” he says, lifting his chin in the direction of Paul and Barbie.

“That’s different. He’s blinded by her.”

“The way she flashes that ring around like a trophy that denotes her importance, it’s easy to be blinded.”

My smile is soft. “The people at my work . . . there’s no way they’ll think you’d date a woman like me.” Talk about humiliating saying the words.

“Like you?”

I nod, my cheeks heating.

“You mean a gorgeous, well-rounded, obviously smart woman?”

“Thank you.” He’s lying. “But that isn’t what I mean.” He’s just being nice.

“Then what do you mean?”

“There’s an obvious age difference between us.” The words feel so stupid coming from my mouth.

“Yeah, I’m thirty-one, and you’re whatever age you are that it’s bugged me so much I haven’t asked you because it doesn’t matter.”

Thirty-one. Jesus.

“And no, you aren’t old enough to be my mother,” he says, reading my unspoken thoughts. “So screw you, Hillary.”

“Hillary?” I laugh, totally thrown by the name.

“The woman in the bar who chased you off the other night.” I struggle with how to respond. “Because that’s why you left, right? She added age to the mix because she was threatened by the fact that I was much more taken with you than by the come-fuck-me eyes she kept giving me all night long.”

“You were?”

He turns so that his knees are on either side of my chair. I hold my breath as he leans into me, his lips so close I can feel the warmth of his breath. “In case you hadn’t noticed”—the tip of his nose hits the shell of my ear, causing chills to dance down my spine—“I was.”

He pulls back some, and for just a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. I want him to kiss me. Our eyes hold, lock, tease.

“The way I look at it, you owe me one.” His voice is just loud enough for me to hear over the din of the restaurant.

“I owe it to you?” I sputter.

“Mm-hm.” He nods resolutely as he puts more space between us, and my lungs find a way to breathe. “You ran out the other night without giving me a chance. I could be the best thing that ever happened to you—platonic or otherwise—and you might have missed that opportunity if we hadn’t run into each other on the street this afternoon.”

Or otherwise?

He’s talking nonsense but is doing it so convincingly that I try to talk myself out of what he’s successfully talking me in to. “I don’t—”

“Does my age unnerve you?” he asks.

“Your age doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly.” He smirks. “So, why are you making it matter?”

I walked right into that one.

“We’re at different phases of our lives. You’re in your residency. I’m a divorcée with baggage—”