The answer is always yes.
I study him unabashedly. I take in his easy nature and charming smile, his drop-dead gorgeous looks, and how it feels as if I’ve known him forever . . . and I tell myself it’ll never happen.
Him. This. Pretend boyfriend. None of it.
“Just like that? You’d decide to accompany a random stranger on a company retreat for no other reason than you’re bored? I mean . . . that’s odd to me.”
“Maybe to you it’s odd, but where I come from, in my circle of friends, we’d do it for each other in a heartbeat.”
My smile widens and then falters as I try to convince myself of all the reasons I should thank him and then leave. “You’re lucky to have that, but—”
“Or maybe it’s as simple as there’s something about you that makes me want to get to know you better. Maybe it’s that side of you that peeks through when you aren’t trying to figure out who to be and you just are. I want to know her better . . . and maybe, maybe it’s as simple as I like you, Blake.”
After everything I went through with Paul, I should take the compliments, the kind words, and let them fill all of the dark places my divorce emptied, but it’s so much easier to refute them than accept them. So much easier to hide in the depths of my insecurities than to really hear his words.
I open my mouth, and my sarcasm gets me in trouble.
“Well, I like ice cream, too, but that doesn’t mean that I’d jump at a chance to go and lick every cone my mouth comes in contact with.” That sounded way worse than I meant it to, and I blush fifty shades of red at how stupid I sound. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
His lopsided grin is like summer and sunshine, and where the hell did that Hallmark-card comment come from? Jesus. A man tells me he likes me, and I turn it into licking ice cream and dying of embarrassment.
“Licking is never bad, huh?” He takes a long glance at my lips before coming back to my eyes. There’s desire darkening in his gaze, and of course, my brain scrambles over what to say so I can at least sound witty. “Does that mean you do or you don’t like me, then?”
“No. I didn’t say that.” So much for trying to sound intelligent. “I like you. A lot.” For the love of God, stop talking. “Or what I know of you.” I’m rambling. “It’s more that . . . I mean, I just don’t understand.” I’m making an idiot out of myself. “Why would you even . . . people just don’t do that.”
Silence falls over our table when I finally stop talking, and everything and anything is more interesting to look at than Slade. Anything.
The burgundy logo on the to-do list napkin. His fingers playing over the base of his glass . . .
The silence stretches until I look back up and meet those light bluish-gray irises of his.
“Some people do.” His voice is soft, and the amusement in his eyes is taunting. “What would it hurt? You get to save face with the ex and also show the new boss you’re there to play her game.”
I shake my head. “I know they say never look a gift horse in the mouth, but . . .”
“Then say yes. What’s the worst that can happen? You get a friend out of the process?”
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?”
