by Amy Faye
"Don't eat me, Mr. Park."
"No," he said. "Not yet."
He stepped back. She seemed almost disappointed that he hadn't tried something. So she was looking forward to it. Maybe she was looking forward to it as much as he was. But he had a plan, and it was going to be perfect. Just as long as he made sure to keep to it, and made sure that he was in control of himself as long as he could.
His skin itched. He stepped towards the door.
"Where are you taking me?"
He turned and made a half-apologetic expression. "I was thinking we could go to my place. I can cook a mean steak."
"I could be a vegetarian," she said.
"You could," Evan offered. "In which case I cook a mean risotto. But there's one other thing: Monday night you had a beef stew, at that diner. So I'm guessing you're just fine with beef."
Her mouth pulled into a tight line. He wasn't sure if she had conceived the question as a test, or if she'd conceived it as a way to fuck with him. After all, he guessed that he was as much a whale to a woman like her, who tried to prove she was smarter than everyone else, as a girl like her was to him.
Something that doesn't come along every day. And he was proving to be every bit the opponent that she hoped he was, he knew. He just hoped that he could keep up his track record long enough to keep her interested.
"Anything else?"
"Movies. I've got a few on offer."
"You've got everything figured out."
"And my roommate's staying with a friend. Not that I'm expecting anything."
"No, of course not," she said. But he could see the cogs working in her head. The cogs that were adding up the situation. She was already deciding whether or not she was going to sleep with him. From the expression on her face, he was starting to relax about making sure that the steaks came out absolutely perfect.
Ten
Evan knew, in his gut, that the moment that they touched in a serious way, the moment that his lips touched hers, they were going to be on a crash course that was going to end in the bedroom. And he knew, more than that, that she didn't have a problem with it. He knew that he needed to get it done. He knew all of these things, and he waited.
He ate the steaks he cooked. He watched the movie she picked. For a moment he even thought about letting her leave for the night, and picking it up next time. Because something about the whole thing gnawed at him in a way that he didn't know how to describe, except that he made himself nervous in a way that no girl had ever done to him.
In the end, it wasn't a logical decision that brought them together. It was his gut. He took her all the way to the door, and was fishing for his keys, when he looked her in the eyes, and the attraction was as much magnetic as it was her appearance.
His lips found hers and then his teeth found her lips, and then her teeth parted and their tongues found each other. His hands found her sides, pulled her shirt up, and discarded it to the side. Her underwear told him that she'd been seriously considering this possibility.
Evan Park had never been a man who needed to hurry when it came to sex. In this case, though, he didn't know that he had the self-control to spend the time admiring her bra as much as he knew he should. He pulled it aside and pulled a breast between his lips. His arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her up.
She let out a mewl of arousal when he held her against the wall, her feet not quite touching the ground. Her legs wrapped around his hips. They were still half-dressed and he was ready to find a way to skip the other clothes-shedding parts of the evening and get to the main event already. He grit his teeth and pushed against her. She pulled him against her hard.
"Fuck me," she growled into his ear. He pulled her away from the wall, bent her over, and peeled her jeans down her hips. Dana didn't seem like the kind of woman who, on a day-to-day basis, matched her panties and her bra. She'd apparently made a special effort today.
He knelt down and tasted her. She was ready, he was certain of that much. He forced himself to take his time, until she was starting to have trouble keeping her voice to herself. Then, when she was right on the edge and thinking very seriously about jumping off, he stopped.
That was a change of pace for him. He usually made it his habit to let the girl blast off at least once before he got to the sex, but there was something in his chest that was desperate in a way that he hadn't felt for years. He brought a hand down on her bottom, not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to sting, though.
Dana yelped. In that moment, Evan pulled his trousers down and freed himself from the confines of his boxers. It had almost started to hurt with strain, and being free was incredibly comforting. Yet, when he finally entered her, it was tighter than it had ever been, and yet, so much sweeter.
He moved quick, hard. Took what he wanted. He wanted everything, and she gave it to him. He didn't stop until he was seconds away from completion, spilling himself on her hip. He reached over to the table and grabbed a napkin, cleaned her up a little bit. They could shower, he thought. But if she thought that she wasn't going to get any dirtier that night, she was sorely mistaken.
When she turned and pulled him into another kiss, as fiery as the first, it told him everything he needed to know: she didn't have any illusions about where this was going, and she didn't mind one bit.
Sleep came fitfully for Evan. Finally, when the clock on his phone told him that it was almost seven, he gave up entirely and slid out of bed. He looked down at Dana's sleeping form. If his nightly waking had disturbed her, she didn't show it. He padded out of the room. True to his word, Colin hadn't come back home. He let out a long breath. There was only one more thing that really needed to be done. He closed his eyes.
It wasn't like it meant anything. He would have done all this anyways, given enough time. It was just a little encouragement. Evan frowned. It sounded empty even to his own ears. But it didn't much matter. All he had to do now was decide how this was going to move forward, and if there was a future to be had then he just had to make sure never to mention any of it to Dana.
He sat down in the chair and tried to convince himself that it was fine. He grit his teeth together. Stood up. Stepped into the other room, and took a single photograph. It wasn't his usual habit to keep souvenirs. He never needed to. If a girl left that strong an impression, he just had to avoid blowing her off until he was done.
Then he turned, turned an eye of the stove on, cracked a few eggs, and started whisking them. The bacon sizzled and popped until it was finished. He pulled it off, dropped the eggs, and by the time they were coming off the heat, Dana was stepping out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.
"What time is it?"
"Time to eat," he said. "Unless you wanted to sleep in some more."
"But what time would a clock tell me?"
He looked at the microwave. "Seven-thirty," he told her.
Dana nodded vaguely. "Yeah, okay."
"You have time to eat?"
"I have time to do whatever you want," she said. She slumped down in a chair. He almost smiled. Something was holding him back, though, and he hated it. He seasoned the eggs and put them on the table, and told himself to forget the whole thing.
Dana didn't need him taking her mood down with him.
Eleven
Evan's arm wrapped around Dana's waist. They walked together; considering their height difference, it ought to have been a little bit of an ordeal to keep from tangling each other up. She must have been used to it, though. Perhaps because of how often she dealt with kids, he thought.
"So when do you work?"
"I don't," she told him.
"Then what are we going to do?"
"I don't know, cowboy. Why don't you tell me?"
"'Cowboy'?"
Dana looked up at him and winked. "You know. Cowboy."
He gave her a dubious look and they kept walking.
"What do you usually do on your days off?"
"Usually I go to Universal Orlando," she said. "And Disney World.
And oh, uh... Paris. I think most days off I go to Paris."
"And you wanted to give it a shot?"
"You know, it just sucks having to break from routine."
"Of course," Evan agreed. "Breaking from routine, right."
It was his turn to wink this time. Dana smiled, tight-lipped. Like she was daring him to call her on it. He wasn't going to, though, and both of them knew it. So instead he smiled down at her.
"You're very happy with yourself, aren't you?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
"I can't do Paris. It's not in the budget until next month. After all, I spent it all on the Maserati."
She nodded. He drove a nice car, but a Maserati it wasn't. "Of course. Next month, then. But I'm holding you to that, because I'm not here to slum with some kind of poor person, you know. I've got an image to maintain."
Evan smiled.
She wheeled on him. "Alright, I've got an idea."
"What's that?"
Her hair was in her face. She wasn't saying anything, preferring to build the tension. Her mouth opened to speak just as his finger started to catch the hair. He pushed it gently behind her ear. Her mouth shut again.
"What?"
"What was that?"
"You had a hair in your face," Evan said.
"It was very…"
He looked at her, waiting for the next surprise in a long series of surprises. Most women wouldn't have minded. He honestly hadn't even considered the possibility that she might be upset by it. Finally he had waited long enough. "What?"
"Sweet," she growled. Like she was pissed that he'd made her say it. He liked that reaction, somehow.
"I'm sorry for being sweet. I'll never do it again."
"See to it you don't."
"So what was your idea?"
"What?" She looked genuinely surprised by the question. A moment's silence hung in the air between them. Then her eyes lit up. "Oh, right. Idea. Okay. No, never mind. It's not important."
"What?"
"You probably wouldn't be interested."
"You don't know what I wouldn't be interested in," Evan said. She might be right. He just knew better than to let her know that.
"Well, I was just thinking, you know?"
"Thinking about what?"
"It's been a while since I've been to a museum."
"Okay. You have one in mind?"
As it turned out, she did. So he pulled out his phone, and forty minutes later, he'd paid too much for parking in the city. It was something that he was loathe to do, but there was no better option. She stood by his side, and a hundred cars whizzed by a second. There was a traffic light, but in what felt like five minutes it had shown no sign of changing, even after they'd pressed the button three times now.
The light changed. He started to go. He was almost startled when he felt something in his hand. Almost. Not startled enough to change anything. Her fingers interlaced with his. They were soft. Cool, but not clammy.
He almost smiled. Then a stiff wind caught him in the face, and he adjusted his balance and they kept moving. There was nothing else to be done. Then they went inside, through the large glass doors, and they walked up to the counter, and eventually he paid more money than he wanted to pay, and decidedly less than it probably should have cost for an afternoon's entertainment.
He almost forgot how much he hated museums. Company, he thought, seems to make all the difference. Regardless of the reasons that he'd gotten into this mess, she appeared to be the kind of company that he wanted to have with him.
Evan tried to take some comfort in that, because no matter how many times he told himself that it was all going to work out, it still felt like something was about to go wrong. Eventually, maybe, if he was lucky, he'd figure out what it was. Or he wouldn't, which might actually be worse.
Twelve
Evan looked down. He was almost surprised to see Dana there, leaning into his chest. She was a waifish little thing, hardly there. He could barely feel her, but he could feel her. The surprising thing wasn't that she was there; it was that she was around at all.
When was the last time that he'd dated someone? Evan wasn't sure. He wasn't sure what this was supposed to be. A second date? A third, if you counted the cup of coffee they'd gotten together? Did that mean they were dating?
More than that, he wasn't sure what she was doing there. Why was she sticking around? Why was he? He pressed his lips together and looked back up at the screen, and told himself to stop second guessing everything. It wasn't going to happen, of course; he was good at second-guessing, when it came to serious relationships.
He was better at getting into girls' pants. Better at picking movies. Better at cooking. Better at politics. Still, he'd need to get married eventually. Some part of him was aware of it. Eventually, it would be convenient, but if he didn't…well, he wasn't interested in trying to answer the questions that would raise. And by the time he got out of school, he had to have gotten past the 'oats sowing' part of his youth.
Still, it felt strange, almost restricting, to think of Dana as anything other than a convenient person to have around. He clicked his teeth together and tried to stop thinking about it. Squeezed her in tight.
Dana made an appreciative noise. By now, he thought, most girls would have their phones out. Few people had the patience for foreign films, even when they were pretty good. And on a random evening? It was just inevitable that people lost interest.
Something in his gut had told him that Dana had a big part of her that enjoyed putting her mind to things. So he was more than willing to believe she could sit through it. It just surprised him that she actually did it.
"I'm gonna grab something to drink," she said. "You want anything?"
"No," he said. She left the room and he changed his mind. "Actually, could you grab me a bottle of water?"
"Sure," she called back. She came back into the room with a long-neck bottle and a plastic water bottle. Part of him was almost surprised that she was drinking beer. But then again, she'd already proven that she liked her alcohol, at least in some circumstances. Maybe this was one of them.
They settled back in. His eyes settled back onto the screen as the hero continued to take a beating that seemed to have been going on for the past two weeks. The trajectory his life was on put him for a death at the end of the movie. It would be better than living through the whole thing, at this point.
Dana's head settled back into the crook of Evan's shoulder. She took a drink. They watched in relative silence. They were comfortable together, and that gave Evan an itch in his spine that he couldn't explain. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wasn't comfortable being so damned comfortable. And it was starting to bother him.
He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. Opened them again. The villain sneered, said something in Korean. The subtitles below regurgitated it in English. There was a sound outside the room. A knock was the only thing that precipitated the door opening, and only by a moment.
Jesse looked like hell. Evan's eyes got wide. Dana moved to the other side of the couch, trying to look nonchalant about it. The way that Jesse licked his lips, it was hard to blame her for being nervous.
"Jesse," Evan said. "This is Dana. Dana, Jesse. Is something wrong?"
"Yeah," Jesse answered. "Nice to meet you" was an afterthought. Then he nodded his head out the door in as-significant a way as possible.
Dana tried her best not to look like she was pressing herself into the arm of the couch to make distance from the new guy. Jesse. Evan knew him, and he seemed to have a key, so Dana figured that he was welcome.
She'd only been in the apartment twice now; for all she knew, she was the one who was unwelcome, really.
"Are you Evan's roommate?"
Jesse flashed a smile that contained no trace of being happy to see her, or happy to answer the question. "No, just a friend. Colin's…well, I'm sure you'll meet him."
"I'll just be a second," Evan told her. Dana nodded and tried n
ot to feel too nervous about it. She'd need to get a ride home, but that…probably wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like she didn't know how to get an Uber.
"Take your time."
Evan left. Dana watched him go. Only after a moment did it occur to her to pause the movie. She did. A flashing pistol took up only a small part of the screen, but in another way it felt like it took up the whole shot. She almost enjoyed it, just as a single still frame.
They talked outside. Dana made an effort not to listen. She pulled her phone out and scrolled through Pinterest. It had nothing interesting, just like it always had. They stopped talking. Evan came back through the door. Jesse, the newcomer, stood by the door. Leaning against the door-frame, like he was waiting for something.
"I've got to go."
"Okay," Dana said. "Everything okay?"
"Jesse's got some trouble and he needs a hand."
"What kind of trouble? Anything I can help with?"
"Not the kind of trouble that you want to get involved in," Evan said. He gave her a significant look. Like it was supposed to mean something. Dana wasn't sure what it was, but she knew how to take a hint.
"Alright," she said. "But you owe me dessert."
Evan smiled a desperate smile. "I'll get you a dozen desserts when I get back, okay? Just stay out of trouble."
"Should I be worried?"
"No," Evan said, turning to grab his coat from by the door. But it was a lie, and they both knew it.
The only thing they didn't both know was what she should have really been worried about.
Thirteen
Dana watched him go, and pursed her lips. Then she laid her head back, looked over at the screen. She clicked the remote. The screen went black. Then she laid her head back.
"Don't you look comfortable?"
Her eyes opened. A man stood over her. He wasn't big. Jesse and Evan could both have put him out in a fight, no problem. But that wasn't going to make a difference. So Dana did what she had to do: she acted like she wasn't afraid, and prayed that she didn't need to be.