Eye of the Tiger

by Melanie Greene

  And he was on time. She opened the door to his double rap, invited him in. "I like your style," he told her, leaning in for a kiss to her cheek. That wildflower scent was stronger than ever, as he stood with her in her element.

  "Thanks." She did a spin, showing off the flare of her sundress's skirt.

  "I meant the decor, but you look great, too."

  Natalie tilted those cat eyes at him. "Watch it, mister. I've got your number now. By which I mean, I've got your dad's number. I will absolutely interrupt his birthday dinner to tell him how rude his son is."

  "No you won't." If she did, his folks would know they were going out again. As friends. Which they'd interpret as something more.

  "Keep hoping." But she was shrugging into a light silk cardigan that picked up the yellows in her dress pattern, and made her eyes glow with a deeper green.

  "I think you're willing to risk going out with me despite my many bad qualities."

  Natalie shouldered her bag and allowed him to open the door for her. "Only because I want to see this play. And Leticia."

  "Yeah, yeah." He waited while she locked up, then took her arm to escort her to his car. "Murder mysteries more than make up for my appalling manners and regrettable relatives."

  He rounded the car and got in beside her. She said, "Don't forget your awful puns."

  "Right, bad puns and bad poetry. The double kiss of death for this friendship."

  "No, I like the poetry," Natalie said, not missing a beat in their banter. "So we're only at one kiss of death. I think we can survive that, don't you?"

  Maybe it was being enclosed in his car with her. Evan inhaled, feeling like sharing Natalie's space helped his lungs fill more deeply than usual. The air in his chest was effervescent.

  "You know," he said, "I really think we can."

  It felt to Natalie like they'd passed some threshold of wariness. She'd been joking with Evan since their first phone call, but it was tempered by a layer of tension. His not recognizing her in the coffee shop. Her mother's prying. Worry about setting boundaries. Now they'd interacted enough to put some trust in each other.

  She suspected Evan felt, like her, more secure in their ground rules. She'd set him straight over Elaine's wrong-headed conviction that Chris's sudden departure had broken her. And debunked the five-year settling-down plan her mother had invented, as well.

  Evan could relax around her. It made dining with him fun. Instead of the charged barbs they'd exchanged at the art gallery, when they'd both reverted to defensive one-upmanship, Nat simply enjoyed Evan's company.

  He lounged back in the booth, legs stretched out, no matter that his posture meant his knee kept bumping Nat's calf. Across from them, Luke scooted his chair towards Leticia's, only to stop and shoot Evan a look. Natalie felt Evan's leg muscles stiffen and caught, peripherally, his faux-innocent smile. Surmising that Evan's feet were quite deliberately in the way of Luke's amorous intentions, Natalie leaned across the table to ask Leticia about her earrings.

  In shifting so she could show them off, Leticia moved even further away from Luke. Evan tapped Nat's leg with his knee, and she used her crossed leg to push him away. Evan's snort of amusement was barely audible over Leticia's story about the friend whose jewelry crafting hobby had turned into a cottage business.

  The waiter delivered their beers and took their orders. Natalie asked for a side salad and an order of fries.

  "That's it? Yelp said the buffalo burger is excellent," Evan said.

  "Probably the buffalo is real proud of that," Nat replied. "But it's not really worth changing my entire diet to find out."

  When Evan pushed himself up straight, Luke wasted no time in colonizing the freed inches next to Leticia. Evan scanned the menu. "There's no veggie burger? You're a vegetarian and you came out for burgers? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "He'll have the buffalo burger," Nat told the waiter.

  "With cheddar and grilled onions," Evan added.

  She took the menu from him and let the lovebirds across from them claim the waiter's attention.

  "You didn't tell me you're a vegetarian."

  "I make my own choices, Evan. If I minded coming here, I'd have spoken up. Besides, I'm not."

  "Not what?"

  "Vegetarian. I don't eat meat, but I eat free range chicken and sustainably caught fish."

  "Huh." He took a pull of his longneck. "No meat, though."

  "Nope. And for the record, I don't keep kosher, but I don't eat shellfish, either."

  "Huh," he said again.

  She patted his arm. "This isn't a huge deal, I swear. I happen to really like French fries."

  "But no cow, no shrimp, no buffalo."

  "No. But I'm not offended if others do."

  "Well, damn."

  He didn't have to sound so flabbergasted. She'd swear his upset was genuine. "It's not anything that affects you, Evan."

  As he sunk back into the corner of the booth, she felt his legs shove forward. Luke's chair scraped across the painted concrete floor. Evan sighed. "Problem is, it does. All this time since the art show, I've had this one desire."

  "You have?"

  "Yep. And now it's thwarted. Permanently, irrevocably thwarted."

  She side-eyed his petulant posture. "What's this big desire of yours, then?"

  "It's just that I was so inspired by the art, you know? So ever since then, I've been dying to take you out for pork chops."

  If Natalie hadn't swallowed her mouthful of beer milliseconds before his comment, her favorite summer sweater would be destined for an immediate trip to the cleaners.

  He hid his grin behind a bite of buffalo burger. Yelp was spot-on about it. And it was better to focus on his meal than on the flirting across the table. Luke kept pretending to steal bites of Leticia's salad, and she giggled every time. She was cute enough, as gigglers went, but it wasn't that charming a move. He was getting embarrassed on his friend's behalf.

  Natalie's foot tapped him under the table. He glanced her way. Without a word, she shoved a forkful of cucumber in his mouth. It was dripping with dressing, and Evan scrambled for his napkin to catch the overflow heading straight for his shirt. He wiped his chin and gave her a look.

  "Thought you'd like the creamy Serrano. It's got a good bite to it, right?"

  "Mmm. Yeah. Quite a kick."

  He nudged her with his foot.

  He heard a muted thump under the table. She ran her foot up his pants leg. He reached for his beer and slugged some back, aiming to stay cool. When her toes crested his sock and hit his calf, he confirmed his suspicion. She'd dropped one of those golden sandals to the floor so her bare skin slid across his.

  Manful. He was manful in his stillness. But then Leticia giggled again, and Luke's ears flamed red, and Leticia leaned over to brush a kiss right on his scarlet earlobe, and Natalie's toes dug into his calf. Evan's shoulders shook.

  "You okay?" She was all innocence, dipping her fry in ketchup, like she had no idea what her lower limbs were up to.

  "You seem to have caught my leg hair in your pedicured piggies."

  "Got you by the short and curlies, do I?"

  He refused, no matter how provocative she sounded, to picture his short hair caught up in her toes. Or any other part of her. They had an agreement. He thought. He thought they had an agreement about no relationship. No letting interfering parents turn them into an item. No short hair.

  He straightened and slid his leg away from her foot. It was the smart thing to do.

  And he was a smart man.

  Reaching over to snag three of her fries right out of her hand was perhaps not the wise move. But as any one of his siblings would say, he wasn't nearly as bright as he thought he was.

  She hadn't meant to flirt. It was dumb. And she had to fess up to full-on flirting, from the footsie at dinner to the fact that she'd floundered for Evan's hand in the dark theatre when the stagecraft included a crack of thunder and one of those Masterpiece-style screams of horror. All very
dramatic, if expected--it was a Christie mystery after all, and she'd been to several of the Alley Theatre's Summer Chills productions over the years. So maybe Leticia burying her head in Luke's shoulder was genuine nerves on her part, but Natalie wasn't wrapping her fingers around Evan's long, smooth, warm ones totally out of fear. And after the detective bumbled onto the scene, tripping over evidence despite the restored lights, keeping her hand in his was, by any measure, unnecessary.

  Fun, but unnecessary. It crossed the line from comfortable friendship to...something more. And she'd already established that she wasn't crossing that line. As had he, mutual smirking about his friend's inept romancing of Leticia notwithstanding.

  She directed him onto the winding parkway towards her house, then fell silent. The moon was full enough for her to see a lot of detail about the trees lining the road, and she counted the oaks they passed, as an alternative to another internal lecture about not needing a man in her life. Especially not one who would so obviously suit Elaine's agenda. She decided to abort her online dating scheme. If proximity to one hot guy left her crossing lines so readily, she wasn't as over her mom's brainwashing as she'd hoped.

  "What are you up to this weekend?"

  She turned. The moonlight was nice about letting her see his face, too. "Work."

  His glance was lit with cynicism. "I'm not asking you out, Natalie. I'm just making conversation."

  She spoke slowly, to force calm and the pretense that they shared a mindset. "Okay, sorry. This weekend, I'm working. I work every weekend. It's part and parcel of my job. Saturday I've got showings with two clients, and Sunday I'm staging a new listing so we can take photos Monday morning."

  "No wonder your mom is so set on this five-year plan of hers. I seem to remember it involved a man who would let you quit your job to raise his babies."

  "She's in favor of becoming a grandmama, but mostly she hopes for the taking care of me part. She respects my career. I'm thinking of changing jobs and it just hit me that if I do, we'll have another topic for her to kvetch over. If I'd made the switch when Chris was around, she'd have adapted. But when he left, all her crazy came out of hibernation."

  "Chris is the ex?"

  "Yep. He and I were together for a few years. Elaine took his departure badly."

  "Only Elaine? How did you take it?"

  Natalie watched the trees cede land to strip centers. "At the time, not great, I suppose. It was a pretty big shock. Not only being broken up with--the way it happened."

  "How did it happen? Unless that's too intrusive."

  "Your parents didn't tell you? I forget sometimes that you don't know everything they know about me."

  "I forget the same thing. Or forget it in reverse. Or however the syntax works out." She could hear the grin in his voice and glanced away from the side window to take in his profile.

  "We sure had a unique introduction to each other, didn't we?"

  "Yep. So, this breakup?"

  After turning over and over Chris's crap move as if it were a compost heap in need of aeration, Natalie had the basics down pat. "Chris is a pilot, and we had a routine for when he was home between legs. He was usually tired after a few days of flying, so we would go for an early movie or drinks, then hole up at his place with take out. I went to pick him up for the movie, and he wasn't there. He wasn't answering his cell, or his door, and his car wasn't in his parking space. I gave up and went to my house, where I found a Dear John in the mailbox. Haven't seen him, or heard from him, or heard anything about him, since. I did find out he wasn't with the airline anymore. The guy I asked had no idea what happened."

  Evan blew a long breath between pursed lips. For a few seconds, the only sound in the car was the clicking of his turn signal. When the light turned green, Evan spoke. "I can't believe Mom and Dad didn't tell me this. What good are they as matchmakers if they won't play the sympathy card?"

  She let her spine sink against the seat. This guy, taking the wind out of her sails again. "Oh, so my tale of woe would have been enough to get you to look past my harem pants?"

  "Well, sure. If they'd told me back when I lived in Tampa. But too bad, now I know you. I even know where you live. Almost."

  "Keep going, it's around the corner. And thanks. Charming to know that my sob story isn't sad enough for a pity date."

  Evan pulled into Natalie's driveway, putting the car in park but making no move to get out. His voice quieted, no longer teasing. "You're probably the least pitiful woman I know. Elaine has it all wrong. The last thing you need is a man to take care of you. You're too independent, and I think, too good at taking care of others. When you find an upgrade to replace Chris, he's going to surprise your mom with how little you need him."

  Natalie swallowed against the lump of longing for his words to come true, and reached into the foot well for her handbag. "Flatterer. Thanks for the play. I had fun."

  Evan's bell laugh rang once. "Maybe not as much fun as Luke and Leticia, but still fun." His hand on her arm stopped Natalie from retreating from the intimacy in the car. His fingers flexed on her bicep, a subtle encouragement to lean towards him. She closed her eyes, hoping to not give away more of her tender emotions. Evan's palm skimmed up to her shoulder blade and he leaned in for a two second press of his lips on hers.

  "See you around, Natalie."

  She nodded and got out of the car. If she was careful, her body blocked the glow of her porch light enough that even as he watched her get safely inside, Evan would have no chance to read her face.

  Chapter Eleven

  Evan was sweating when he answered her knock.

  "Sorry, I just got back from the gym. Come in." He stood back and Natalie only paused for a microsecond to determine that his perspiration smelled annoyingly manly. Guys shouldn't smell like fresh lumber after working out.

  Also, it turned out Evan's upper arms were cut.

  His soulless corp-house had gained some personality since the last time she'd seen it. He'd added a buttery leather armchair and a weird but cool sculpture to the living room, and hung a bunch of family photos.

  "So, what's up? You finished your showings for the day?" Evan leaned up against the pass-through from the kitchen to the dining area. Couldn't call it a room, since it was no more than eight by ten and the mirrored wall didn't create the illusion of depth that the designers clearly imagined it would. If Natalie was listing this place, she'd describe it as intimate and elegant.

  Which was not so different from how she hoped to describe today's encounter with Evan.

  "Yeah, one of the couples canceled. Sorry for not calling first--I wanted to chat with you."

  "Sure. Everything okay?"

  Pine. Rough-hewn pine. Maybe he'd stuck an air freshener in his car? Or was it a body spray of some sort? If he didn't stop smelling good she was going to have to investigate all his products. "Fine, sure."

  That crinkle at his eye meant he'd figured out she was flustered. He seemed settled in to wait her out, though, despite the moisture curling the back of his hair and the deep vee of sweat staining the chest of his workout tank.

  Natalie forced herself to stop cataloging his body. "We--you and I--what we are is a couple of people who want to be single."

  Damn eye crinkles deepened, and she was confronted with his hair flopping adorably as he tilted his head. "A singular couple of singles, indeed."

  She couldn't help it; she laughed. Probably due to nervous tension, because Evan had never been as funny as he thought he was. Well, almost never. "Right. And our parents would clearly prefer that we were a singular couple."

  The crinkles faded. "Well, yes. But--"

  "I'm not proposing, Evan, relax. I just had an idea, and you can nix it if you like, but if not, it--well, it might be fun."

  They regarded each other for a long moment. Finally he pushed out a breath and asked her to explain.

  So she did. It was bumbling, but she got there in the end. She'd picked up on their chemistry, as she was sure he had, and i
f it weren't for their families, like they'd said at Black Gold, she'd want to explore it. Since they had the family issue, they couldn't date without a lot of hassle. But that didn't mean they had to avoid each other. They could act on the whole chemistry thing, as long as their relations never found out.

  His face had gone from smile lines to creased brow and settled on pursed lips and a cocked head as he considered her. "Just to be clear here. You're saying we should be fuck buddies?"

  Natalie's cheeks went a peachy pink. "You can just say no."

  Was she kidding? "Why the hell would I say no?"

  "You haven't said yes," she pointed out. As if to emote nonverbally for her while she tried to hold herself still, Natalie's hair began to escape her bun, springing out in random curls across her scalp. He wondered if it was happening because of the blood rushing to her head with her embarrassment. He wondered how wild it was going to look once he got his hands in it.

  Because he was definitely going to get his hands in it.

  "Yes."

  Her cat eyes widened before she blinked herself back to the controlled facade she always tried to maintain. "Yes?"

  "Oh, hell yes. I am in." He grinned his most lascivious grin at her, and her cheeks flamed brighter. This was going to be a blast. "In and out and in again."

  She probably wanted to throw more questions his way, to clarify and regulate and highlight and moderate the whole situation. Evan didn't give her a chance.

  He stepped forward, greedy arms reaching, and wrapped himself around her. She was wearing yet another coolly smooth shirt, neat trousers, heels. He was in a sweat-stained tank and gym shorts. His bare arms slid easily over the satiny shirt as he molded her body to his, pressing her to the bulge he didn't have a hope of hiding once he started thinking about touching her. The kiss stole his breath, and only because he'd just worked out and could blame it on lung recovery did that not freak him out.