by Claire Adams
“Do everything I wouldn’t do,” Hannah yelled after me as I pulled away from the house.
My nerves wouldn’t stop on the drive to Fort Worth, and my hands were literally shaking by the time I pulled into the restaurant parking lot. I was 15 minutes early for the date, but I had to get a drink if I was going to calm my nerves before my date showed up.
“Cranberry sour, please,” I said as I stood at the bar.
“Coming right up.”
I sipped it a little faster than I should have, but I had to get my hands to calm down. I didn’t know what this guy looked like and the only way I was supposed to recognize him was going to be the red rose he had in his hand. It was either going to be very romantic or a huge disaster if some other guy showed up with a rose that night as well.
“Ms. Sullivan?” a man in a nice suit asked.
I took in a deep breath and glanced over at him, looking for the red rose he was supposed to have and didn’t see it. Instead, I saw a name tag that listed this Michael guy as a manager.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
“Your date has reserved a special table and asked that I seat you if you arrived before him.”
“Oh, um, all right. Can I get another one of these delivered to the table?” I asked the bartender.
“Certainly, ma’am. I’ll bring it out to you,” Michael, the manager, said.
I followed him through the restaurant to a table right in the middle of the room. It was a large table with plenty of room around it, but it certainly didn’t seem like that special of a table. If a guy was going to go to all the trouble of reserving a table and making sure the manager of the restaurant brought me to it before he arrived, I would have thought it would be a special table in the back or something nice like that. This table was right where everyone could see, and it wasn’t all that quiet out in the middle of the room like that.
“Thank you,” I said as the manager held my chair out for me and pressed it under me as I sat down.
“I’ll bring your drink right out.”
“Thank you. Does my date know I’m here?” I asked as if there was some sort of secret communication going on between the manager and my date.
“No, ma’am, I have not seen him yet.”
“Thank you.”
I looked around the room anxiously while I waited for my drink to be delivered. At least my hands had stopped shaking, and I didn’t feel totally out of control. When he delivered my second drink, I took a small sip and then let it sit in front of me. I couldn’t ram through drinks like a crazy woman if I was going to keep my wits about me that evening.
Sutherland’s was a fancy restaurant with mainly couples filling the tables all around me. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d pay for to take children since they likely wouldn’t eat half the food that was on the menu. It did look like there were a couple of families who had older teenagers and adult children, but no young kids. I tried not to look too crazy as I glanced at the tables around the room and tried my best not to look like a lonely woman sitting in the middle of the room all by myself.
What if he doesn’t show up?
The thought made my stomach flip over. What a perfect way to embarrass someone. Tell them to come to a super expensive restaurant and then have the manager put them right in the middle of the room so everyone could see their embarrassment when the date never showed up.
“Kelsi,” I heard a man’s voice say, and I smiled as I looked up from my phone.
“Tyler, what are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” he said with a flashy grin on his face.
“You just happen to be in Fort Worth, and you just happened to show up at Sutherland’s when I was here?”
He slowly pulled a red rose out from behind him and extended it to me as some sort of peace offering. I fumed with anger as I looked at him and then at all the people who were watching us. To avoid an embarrassing scene, I took the rose and smiled politely as he sat down across from me.
“You tricked me?” I said under my breath since people were still looking.
His smile didn’t waver as he leaned in to talk with me. If I hadn’t had a hundred people around me, I’d probably have been screaming at him by then. But I wasn’t going to make a scene in front of everyone, and he knew it. That was why he picked the table in the middle of the restaurant, so I wouldn’t leave in a huff while screaming at him.
“I really wanted to go on a date with you,” he said with that continuous smile that just wouldn’t go away.
“So, you pretended to be someone else and set up a fake profile to contact me? Real mature, Tyler.”
“It was my same profile. I just updated it.”
“The profile said my date like to watch movies, go to musical theater, and volunteered at a local children’s charity. That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“It is.”
“Sure, okay, whatever. I’m going to get going. I don’t date liars. I would have thought you figured that out from our days of dating in high school.”
“Kelsi, don’t go,” Tyler said as his hand reached out for mine.
The touch of his firm hand on mine was enough to stop me still. The way he looked at me and urged me to stay with his eyes was just another thing I couldn’t ignore. He looked sincere in his request. Tyler didn’t look like he was trying to trick me or pull one over on me, he genuinely seemed to want to talk to me.
“Fine, I’ll stay for dinner,” I huffed.
“And if things go well, you’ll go to the musical showing downtown?”
“Don’t push your luck, buddy,” I said playfully.
“Thank you for staying. I know I tricked you and I’m sorry. I thought you might have seen the humor in it. Like a little bit of a practical joke.”
“You are a practical joker now?” I smiled.
“Obviously, I’m not as good as you are at it.”
“Okay, so you’ve got me here; now what? Did you have a big plan for how dinner would go, too? Will there be some sort of cake with a human jumping out of it? I hate those, don’t do that.”
“Are you two ready to order?” the waitress said as she joined us at the table.
“Cancel the man jumping out of the cake,” Tyler said playfully. “But otherwise we aren’t ready just yet. Give us a few minutes please.”
“I’m starving; let’s decide and get our order in. There are tons of people, and I don’t want to be here all night.” I said firmly.
I wasn’t about to let him think I had let my guard down just because I was still sitting there with him. He was charming, I knew at least that much about Tyler. He had always been able to charm his way in or out of any situation he got himself in.
“Oooh, you’re full of spunk tonight, aren’t you?” He laughed.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long few days. I’ll behave myself.”
“Don’t behave on my account; I’m fine with you being naughty,” he said as his eyes drifted to my chest and he licked his lips. “I’d really like to be naughty with you. Maybe tonight you and I should do it?”
“Really? You’re going to look at my boobs as you’re trying to win me over? Does this really work with your little online girlfriends? Come on, they have to want more than this.”
Tyler was laughing hysterically at me. It took me a moment to figure out what he was doing and when I did, I also started to laugh hysterically.
“The night of the party, I said that to you while we were eating McDonald’s. It almost worked. I mean, if those darn meddling police hadn’t broken up the party.”
“Yeah, that was a horrific moment. Remember how I jumped off the bed and onto the ground?” I laughed.
“Oh, yeah, I remember because you left me on the bed without any blankets at all. You were all cozily wrapped up in your blankets on the ground while I was left head to head with Mike and Bryce.”
“Head to head.” I kept laughing. “You are guys; nakedness doesn’t matter between guys.”
“Very true, but it was still embarrassing. I was thinking about how I handled things, and I see why you were angry. I didn’t see it when we were younger, but I see it now. It wasn’t very sensitive of me to think it was all funny and not listen to your feelings. I didn’t realize just how much you were getting teased and I truly am sorry.”
“I’m going to start crying; thank you for that. I’m sorry, too. I was young and immature, and I should have just come and talked to you and made you see my side of things. My friends were telling me what a jerk all three of you were, and I was listening; that was wrong of me.”
“Are you ready to order?” the waitress asked as she stood awkwardly looking at us while we were in the middle of our uber romantic moment.
“Yes, we should order,” Tyler said with a bit of a smile on his face. “You go ahead,” he said with a nod.
“I’d like the lobster salad, please.”
“Oh, lobster, that sounds good, but I think I’d rather have the whole tale.”
“Would you like me to bring you some rolls to the table?” the waitress asked.
“Yeah, rolls,” I said without a moment of hesitation.
Bread had somehow become the enemy of Americans and I just didn’t get it. Everything in moderation was just fine to have, but I wasn’t about to give up bread just to lose a couple of pounds.
“I love bread,” Tyler said almost under his breath.
“Me too.” I giggled. “How’s your father doing? Do you think he is in very much pain?”
“He’s doing as well as can be expected. How are your parents doing?”
“That’s been part of my stress this week. Our family has had some stress going on with the ranch, and I was kept out of the loop, which was annoying.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” I laughed.
“Can I ask you a question, without you getting mad?” Tyler said.
“Sure. Well, I think so. I guess it matters what the question is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your son?”
“What son?” I said with a straight face to see his reaction.
“Um, well. I thought you had…”
“I’m teasing you,” I said because I couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. “He’s five, and his name is Clyde. Did your sister tell you?”
“Yeah, it’s no big deal, I was just wondering if there was a reason you hadn’t told me.”
It was a legitimate question, and I hadn’t thought about telling him about Clyde at all. When I was at the reunion, I was caught up in the evening so much that I wasn’t thinking about anything more than what we were talking about. Then while on our horseback riding, I didn’t think I’d be seeing him again after that day so I wasn’t going to go into the long story of my life. I didn’t keep Clyde a secret because I was ashamed of any part of my story; I simply didn’t want to make anything more complex than it needed to be.
“Just didn’t get around to it, I guess. I’m sure I would have told you sooner or later, but I wasn’t planning on hanging out with you again,” I teased as I motioned around the restaurant.
“Ah, yes, you were planning on meeting up with one of those super sexy millionaires and I ruined your date. I’m terribly sorry you’re stuck with my hideous face for this meal.”
“Yeah, I was hoping for someone a little better looking than you,” I teased. “But I guess I can suffer through the meal.”
Chapter Eleven
Tyler
“At least you didn’t throw your drink at me,” I joked. “That was my biggest fear coming to meet you here tonight.”
“I wouldn’t waste a drink on you,” she joked back with me.
Our dinner was going great, and we were getting along much better than I expected. The tension around me lying to her about who I was had dissipated, and there was a fun banter going back and forth. She was razzing me pretty hard, but I actually liked it. There weren’t many women in the world who were confident enough to give me a hard time, or at least not the women I went on dates with.
“I have to tell you, that dress is killing me,” I whispered as Kelsi and I walked out of the restaurant.
The meal had been amazing and our conversation equally wonderful, but all I could think about was the long zipper at the back of her dress and how fulfilling it would be to slide the metal down to her hips and pull the dress off of her. I couldn’t even bring myself to guide her through the restaurant because I liked being a step behind her and watching how her ass moved in the dress.
“You better behave back there,” she whispered before I moved back a step so I could watch her again.
Kelsi pressed the door of the restaurant open and I swooped in and pulled her around the corner of the building. My body pressed against hers as my breath got heavy from desire. Even the scent of her perfume had me throbbing as I took in the look in her big green eyes.
She didn’t say anything; she didn’t resist. Kelsi just looked at me with a slight smile on her face while she waited for me to decide what I wanted to do. What I wanted was to flip her around, pull that dress of hers up, and slide inside of her, but obviously I wouldn’t do such a thing. My body didn’t understand the niceties of dating, and I pressed my hips against her slightly.
“I still have those musical tickets,” I said as my lips moved to her collarbone and started to gently touch her.
She pulled in a deep breath and rotated her head to the other side so I could get a better angle on her neck. There was a soft moan coming from her with every kiss I delivered and each time she did it I felt like I might actually take her right there. There were limits on my ability to resist a sexy woman, and those limits seemed fairly stressed at the moment.
“Mmm, then maybe you should stop getting me all excited and we should walk over to the theater.”
“You’re excited?”
“Yes.”
“I love that I make you excited. Because you have my mind spinning so much that I can hardly remember my own name.”
“It’s Tyler,” Kelsi said as her hands ran up and down my chest.
She let her fingers run down to my belt buckle and I felt them sliding from one side of my body to the other. She didn’t move below the belt, she never felt the throbbing of my body, but she knew it was there. My throbbing member was undeniably pressed against her, and she was teasing me with her fingers as she moved closer and closer to the region without going over the border of my belt.
“Oh, yes, that is my name.” I laughed. “We should get going. Unless you’d rather come back to the hotel room I rented.”
“Let’s go to the show,” she said softly.
“Yeah, that sounded a little creepy. Sorry.”
“No, not creepy. But I haven’t been out of the house on a real date in a really long time, and I would really like to see this show. It was a great idea.”
“Then to the theater we go,” I said dramatically.
“You better be careful walking with that thing in your pants. I don’t want you to get hurt,” she teased. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“Oh, that’s just a banana I have in my pocket in case you get hungry during the show. You know they don’t let you brings snacks into these things.”
I loved that Kelsi got my sense of humor and the two of us had gone right back into our old comfortable way of communicating. It was relaxing to be around her. Even though I was a little nervous at the beginning of our evening, things between us were much better than they had been even when we were in high school. Talking with Kelsi wasn’t like talking to other women I had dated. She was easy to talk to, she laughed at all my sly jokes and even came back with some of her own. This was the sort of thing I had hoped would happen with us that evening.
“I do like bananas,” she said as we waited to get into the theater. “Maybe I will eat it while we watch the show.
“No,” I said in total shock as she turned toward me and smiled widely. “Don’t you teas
e me like that.”
“I thought you liked being teased,” she said as her hand briefly brushed against my pants and felt my throbbing member. “Don’t worry; I’ll behave myself. For the time being.”
Wow, this girl was driving me wild. Everything she said. Everything she did, it was all playing into my fantasies of the perfect woman. I knew no woman could actually be perfect, but Kelsi was getting pretty damn close to what I had always wanted in a woman. She was making it harder and harder to resist her, and if the rest of this evening continued the way it had been, I might not have to resist her at all.
As we found our seats and sat down, I noticed a sparkle in Kelsi’s eyes as she looked around the theater. Kelsi had always loved the theater, and so did I. For a moment, I imagined what our lives might have been like if we had stayed together. I imagined being married and having children at home, the two of us getting a night away for ourselves. But the reality was that I wouldn’t have the fortune or businesses that I’d acquired if I had stayed with Kelsi. My success was partially because I had split from her and was finding my own independence. I had nothing to lose and therefore went after the ultimate of my dreams. I wouldn’t have been so bold if I had a wife and child at home waiting on me, so for that, I was grateful.
I reached my hand to Kelsi’s and intertwined our fingers as the show started. Comfort washed over me. What had started out as pure lust earlier in the evening was now an overwhelming level of comfort. I wasn’t in the mood that I normally felt while out on a date. To be honest, I didn’t go on too many full dates at all, and I certainly wasn’t bringing women to musicals or the theater. But the moment between us was genuine and serene, it was what I imagined many couples felt when they went on their dates together, yet I hadn’t experienced it in my adult life.
“I heard that there’s a big scene in the middle that will scare us. I’m so excited,” Kelsi said as she leaned toward me.
“I think I’ll probably scream like a school child; please don’t judge me.”
“Oh, I’ll judge you,” she teased.
The show was amazing, and it did indeed have a startling parade of explosions that made both Kelsi and I flinch when they happened. It was a delightful show though and worth every moment of our time.