He chuckled. “The food’s not bad, either.”
“Yeah, I bet.” She looked around at the other diners, sipping their wine and looking a little too much like her mother for comfort. She crossed her legs, like the diamond-studded princess was doing at the next table, and tilted her chin up.
“So Michael, how’s the stock market? I hear interest is sky high.” She pursed her lips.
“You look beautiful.”
Her heart fluttered, but before she absorbed the compliment, she flipped her hair over her shoulder.
“Aw shucks,” she said. “Go on.”
She looked around again, at all the men and women in their expensive clothes, and saw that more than a few were trying to hide the fact that they were looking her way. She was used to standing out because of the way she dressed. Her clothes, her hair, her look, they were her shield, they covered up the mess inside of her. She didn’t usually care, but now, with Mike, she did.
He leaned forward, and took her hands. They were warm, and big, and as they enveloped hers she felt warmth streak up her arms.
“Amy,” he said, holding her still with his gaze. “You are beautiful.”
Her mouth went dry. She wasn’t sure what to say, even if she could speak.
He squeezed her hands. “Red light?”
“More like yellow light.” She smiled at the reference. The girls played a game called Red Light/Green Light. When they were racing to get somewhere Red Light meant stop; Yellow Light, walk; and Green Light, full throttle.
They pulled apart when the waitress arrived. She poured them water from of an artsy glass basin, and asked if she could bring them something else to drink. Amy waited for Mike to order, and when he stuck with a Coke, Amy ordered the same.
“I’m driving,” said Mike. “Get whatever you want.”
She bit her lip, then ordered a glass of red wine.
When she left, Amy perused the menu, trying not to gawk at the prices. Maybe she should have moved $200 over from her savings instead of just half that. She decided to get a pear and gorgonzola salad. It was on the cheaper end, and she picked at her food. It was always easier to hide that when eating pieces of lettuce.
“How was your day?” Mike asked, when she finally put the menu down. “Aside from getting pulled over?”
She scrunched up her nose, choosing not to mention the lack-of-funds-to-purchase-lube fiasco. “Fine. Work was good. Derrick has me doing employee scheduling now, which is surprisingly complicated.” She didn’t want to bore him, and she definitely didn’t want to discuss her fieldtrip with Anna. “Miss Wright said the girls did well in math. They need to practice tracing their capital letters. Oh, and sign-ups for the Thanksgiving party...”
“Red light,” said Mike.
She hesitated.
“We talk about the girls all the time,” he said. “I want to talk about you.”
“Oh.” A busboy brought out a loaf of bread, and to busy her hands she took a piece and pulled off a tiny corner to nibble on. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. What you do when you’re not watching porn.”
She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “Can we please forget that ever happened?”
“Not a chance,” he said.
The wine came, and she took a sip. It went straight to her head. She took another pinch of bread and decided to play it safe.
“Well,” she said. “For starters, I’m five-foot-three,”
“False,” he interrupted.
She gaped at him. “What do you mean, false?”
“You’re four-foot-nine, at most.”
She gave a short laugh. “Okay, five-foot-two. With a thick pair of socks on.”
“That’s closer.”
“I’m from outside Cincinnati,” she said. “My parents are divorced, I love ice creams with elaborate names, and I refuse to watch horror movies on the principle that they’re sexist, but mostly just because suspenseful music terrifies me.”
His finger moved back and forth over his fork in a very distracting way, but his eyes stayed on her, watching every little movement.
“When did your parents divorce?”
A weight settled on her chest. She took another sip of wine.
“When I was fifteen. After my brother died.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago.” It didn’t hurt as much as it used to; she’d been so young then. Now it was more like a dull ache. “He was in the army, in Iraq. Their convoy got hit by an IED.”
Mike was quiet for a while.
“What was his name?”
“Cole.”
“Cole.” Mike lifted his drink, and they both took a sip.
“When he died, people kept thanking us for his service. Like we’d given him to them or something. But he was dead, you know? I didn’t agree to his sacrifice, I just wanted my brother back.”
She remembered all the nights after he’d joined, sitting in his room, staring at the Cincinnati Reds posters and clothes in his closet and wondering what he was doing in Iraq. When the officers had come to tell them what had happened, she’d gone back to that room, feeling like something should have changed. But nothing had changed. He’d been gone since he’d turned eighteen and signed the paperwork.
Mike nodded. “And then your folks split up.”
“My mom’s a born martyr,” said Amy. “As awful as it was, she kind of liked all the attention she got. And my dad, he thought Cole was going to take over his business—financial advising. It was more a disappointment than anything else.”
She reached for another piece of bread.
He gave a soft hum. “Are you close to them?”
“Not really.” Her father wasn’t a bad man, but he’d never understood children. He didn’t love them the way she loved Paisley. Cole was always a fuck-up who couldn’t make the grades, and Amy was his little angel who couldn’t manage to be angelic enough. “My dad remarried. They have their own thing going. And my mom lives off the alimony and the pity of the people in her congregation.”
“Sounds lonely,” he said.
She felt her lips pull to the side. She wasn’t sure if he meant lonely for her or her mother, or maybe both. With a jab of guilt, she remembered the phone call she’d gotten earlier in the day, and reminded herself to call back tomorrow.
“How are we doing?” The waitress, dressed sharply in a black blouse and apron, appeared beside the table. “Can I tell you about our specials?”
The listened as she spouted a list of entrees Amy was pretty sure she’d need to donate an organ in order to afford. Before she was done, Mike leaned over and whispered, “Get something big. They have small portions and I’m starving.”
Grinning, she added a filet mignon to her fancy salad, mentally calculating how much of her paycheck would be going to this dinner, and when the waitress left, Mike told her to keep going.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking away. “I finished high school and moved to Florida.”
Another woman glanced over at her, and then at Mike. She fought off the insecurity this time. Yeah, she was here with a hot guy. Get over it.
“Slow down,” he said, not appearing to notice. “You were a cheerleader...” he motioned for her to take it from there.
She laughed. “Anna talked me into trying out our sophomore year. I wore a very short skirt and could hold my ankle up by my ear.”
She paused, wondering where that had come from. Maybe she’d had too much to drink.
Mike shook his head and clutched his heart. “That image is going to make for a lot of sleepless nights.”
“You’re a little old for high school girls, don’t you think?”
“It’s not the age I like,” he said. “It’s the thought of your open thighs.”
She choked on a piece of bread, and when she looked up, he was smirking. The buzz filled her entir
e body, and she felt an unexpected clutch low in her belly.
“Red light?” he asked, amused.
“Y-yellow.”
He nodded. “You’re sexy as hell, Amy. That better?”
She snorted. He was messing with her. He had to be. No one just came out and said things like that.
“What brought you to Florida?” he asked.
A cringe warped her face. “The sunny weather?”
She didn’t want to tell this part of the story. She didn’t want him to think of her as the stupid, naïve rebel, looking for love in all the wrong places. She definitely didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. If she told him about Danny, she’d feel the need to justify how he’d been sweet at first. How he’d made her forget about Cole. How his world of grungy clothes and rock and roll had helped her escape from a cold house and church every Sunday. And then she’d be mad at herself for defending him at all. Mike knew how the story had ended, and could probably guess that it hadn’t been pretty.
That was the problem with dating a friend. You couldn’t pretend to be someone else. They knew too much.
Though he still waited for another answer, she could sense the moment he’d pieced together the truth. She became explicitly aware of how his body stilled, and then how his fingers, once loose on the table, curled in to make a fist. A heaviness came over them, and when she fidgeted with her bangs she found her hairline damp with perspiration. Silently, she scrambled for something to lighten the mood.
“Here we are.” The waitress turned the corner, holding two steaming plates in her silver oven mitts. “The filet.” She placed Amy’s steak before her. “Watch the plate, all right? I don’t want you to burn yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Mike’s steak was twice the size of hers, but he barely looked at it. He was still staring at Amy, even when the waitress asked what else she could get them.
“This looks great, thank you,” said Amy.
Mike didn’t touch his fork.
Amy’s heel began to tap. A cold, familiar sensation tightened the muscles at the base of her spine.
“You should try it,” she said. “It smells amazing.”
“How long did it go on?” he asked.
She crossed her arms, and then her ankles. The anger came off of him in waves. She could feel it; Danny had taught her to be hypersensitive to other people’s tension.
“Do you want sour cream for your potato? I can see if our waitress...”
“Amy,” he said.
“Really, she’s just over there. I’m sure she can...”
“Amy.”
Her efforts to redirect his attention were too late. If she’d only thought faster, she could have avoided the giant elephant in the room.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Not with me.”
She waited. Around them, wine glasses clinked. Knives scratched against porcelain places. Voices raised in laughter. She took it all in, senses sharp, and twisted the napkin in her lap.
She forced herself to look at him.
“I know the tricks,” he said gently. “Calm him down, make him laugh, apologize, even if it wasn’t your fault. You know as well as I do they just prolong the inevitable. If someone wants to hurt another person, they’re going to do it.”
She knew Mike’s mother had been abused by his father; he’d talked about this during the first self-defense class Anna had dragged her to. She’d wondered sometimes if he’d been abused, too, but as she looked across the table at him, her question was answered.
He knew exactly what it meant to be on the wrong side of someone else’s anger.
“Have you ever wanted to hurt another person?” she asked, thinking of every time Danny had raised his voice. Thinking of the way he’d leaned against her car just this week, asking for money.
He nodded slowly.
“Your father,” she said.
“That’s right.”
They stared across the table at each other, connected by their painful pasts. The other patrons silenced, then disappeared. It was like they were the only two people in the entire city.
“Did you?”
He nodded again. “I became who he taught me to be.”
She could tell that bothered him to admit.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“God,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” He finally looked away. “And maybe that makes me just as bad as him, I don’t know.”
Now it was her that reached for his hand. She didn’t say anything. Sometimes it was better just to be there.
He looked at where they touched.
“Does it bother you that people are looking?” he asked.
So he had noticed.
“Maybe they’re jealous of my boots.” She played it off, but was feeling self-conscious again.
He laughed, bringing the blush to her skin.
“I’m sure that’s it,” he said. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we’re on opposite ends of the color spectrum.”
Any laughter that had been building died in her throat.
“Wait, we’re what?”
She looked around, and caught a woman to her right glancing away.
It shocked that people would still think twice about a white woman going out with a black man. Fury made her teeth clench, and her nails bite into the palms of her hands. “I thought they were looking because you’re hot.”
“Well,” he said. “That’s part of it.”
She set her napkin on the table, stood, and walked around to his chair. Surprised, he looked like he might stand too, but before he could, she squeezed between the table and his chest and sat on his lap.
Before he could speak, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. This kiss was different than before, because she could feel a dozen different gazes turn her way. A surge of possessiveness rose up inside her, daring those watching to pass judgment. She claimed the moment with a fierceness she’d never experienced with another man, and in contrast, his full lips teased slowly, pulling her under, making her forget just why she’d come over here in the first place. His hands circled her waist, and she sighed, softening under his grasp.
She pulled back, eyes on his, lost for a moment in the desire that she saw there.
“Let them look,” she said. “I don’t care.”
Chapter Eleven
While they ate, he talked. He told her about his mother, and how she’d always kept him active in sports so he couldn’t get into trouble with Alec. He gone out for football his freshman year in high school, and made the JV team as a wide receiver. The next year he’d been bumped up to varsity, and played through his senior year, when he’d gotten a scholarship to go to Florida State.
“Go Gators,” she’d said.
He’d put down his fork and told her their date was over.
“Seminoles,” he said. “Not gators. Not ever gators.”
“Got it.” She giggled.
While he told her about playing in college, she watched his mouth, and thought about how his lips had felt against hers here at the restaurant, and back in the car. She wanted to feel them again, wanted to taste him again. Sometimes she lost a word or two of what he was saying, imagining his hands sliding down her waist and pulling her against him. Her whole body seemed to be in tune with his. He leaned closer, so did she. He made a joke and she laughed. He reached beneath the table and touched her bare knee, and she slid to the edge of her seat, so that he could dip his finger into the top of her boot.
“I told you the food was good,” he said, when the busboy came to clear the table.
She’d eaten every bite. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done that. Before she’d started dating Danny, maybe.
They went to the dessert room and picked from the four million choices. She went with a shortbread-flavored ice cream drizzled in fudge, and he got a piece of strawberry cake.
&n
bsp; They talked about how his classes were going, and she was both delighted and surprised to learn he’d be done this semester. He’d already taken two practice LSAT exams, and was planning on applying to law school in the spring.
“What kind of law?” She couldn’t get enough of him. She wanted to know every little detail, all his secrets.
“Family,” he said. “Divorce, child support, custody.” He paused. “Abuse.”
He was a protector; she knew that already. It’s why he’d brought her into his home. Soon, he would protect others like her, and his mother. He’d protect children, like the child he had been.
He was a good man.
“Did you need more classes to get in? Is that why you’re going back now?”
His gaze flicked to the side.
“I didn’t finish my undergrad.” he hesitated. “I left early.”
“Why?” she asked, licking the ice cream off her spoon. “Drafted early for the pros?”
He set his fork down, then rubbed his hands on his thighs. She could sense his tension, though the need to calm him wasn’t there as it had been before.
“I got married.” He scratched the back of his head.
Her smile faded.
“How did she die?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that bluntly; she hadn’t really meant to ask at all. She had hoped Mike would volunteer that information. As the seconds ticked by, she wondered just how big her mouth would have to be to fit her whole boot inside.
“How did you hear that?” he asked.
“Paisley,” she said. “By way of Chloe.”
He gave a short hum and looked away.
“Drunk driving accident,” he said. “Chloe was sixteen months.”
She put down her spoon, unsure what to say. Her chest hurt for him. Hurt, like someone had just thrown a hammer at it.
His eyes pinched around the edges. “I don’t want to talk about Denise.”
“Okay, of course.”
It stung, for reasons she would never mention. He’d loved her, obviously talking about it at all pained him considerably. And mixed in with Amy’s pity was a small, but undeniable slice of jealousy. She wanted all of him, but this part, this hugely significant part of his life, was off limits.
More: A Body Work Novel (The Body Work Trilogy Book 4) Page 9