by Lily Maxton
He fell into pace beside me, keeping up easily with his longer legs.
I stopped and faced him, knowing it was useless. “What?” I snapped.
“I wanted to apologize for earlier, I got carried away.”
I mouthed the words. Carried away. Carried away?! “Yes, you did,” I said. I might’ve been able to lie to him, but I couldn’t lie to myself—I wasn’t only angry because of what he’d done; I was also angry because he hadn’t finished. And because of the reason he hadn’t finished. “Did you fix Natalie’s problem?” I asked sourly.
He looked down at me; his eyes glinted in the light from the setting sun that reflected off the cars and windows around us. He had the nerve to smile as though he found something vastly amusing.
“Yeah—it wasn’t that difficult. She could have figured it out herself if she’d done an Internet search.”
“Imagine that,” I said. I hadn’t known it was possible for my voice to get even sourer, but it did.
“Look, I didn’t want to leave with her. But it would’ve been rude if I’d refused to help.”
“And you’re such a nice guy,” I snarled. “God forbid you look rude.” I wasn’t going to say anything else, but it slipped out when he stared at me with a baffled expression. “Didn’t you think you had a more pressing matter to attend to?”
“A more pressing …” he trailed off. And then he laughed. “That’s what has you so pissed off?”
I shifted my plain black purse from one shoulder to the other, simply for something to do. “No.”
“I didn’t know I had a deadline; you’re a very impatient woman, Danielle Meyer.” His hand gripped my elbow; he reeled me in, a fish on a hook.
All of my instincts pointed toward one action—surrender. But now that I’d distanced myself from my desire, now that I had the added benefit of the bracing autumn chill, my mind overcame my treacherous body.
I pulled my arm from his grasp. “It was a good thing Natalie walked in. I got carried away too—I don’t do things like that. Anyway, I just broke up with my boyfriend … I’m not ready to fool around. Especially not with a coworker. We have to see each other every day; it would make going to work way too awkward.”
His hand fell to his side, useless. “I don’t normally do things like that either.”
I shrugged. “Then it should be easy to stop it from happening again.”
“Easy,” he said, “Right. Are you sure that’s really what you want?”
“Positive.”
He stared me down. His eyes when the sun hit them were the purest blue I’d ever seen, like a summer sky, and just as unfathomable. After a minute of simply looking at me, he said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” I was bewildered. I’d expected a bit more fight than that.
“Can I at least drive you home?”
“It’s only about a twenty-minute walk.”
“It’s colder out today.”
As soon as he spoke, the wind picked up, stinging my eyes and bare legs. I folded my arms over my coat, annoyed and shivering.
“Fine.” I capitulated. “I’ll let you take me home.”
Chapter Seven
I followed him silently to the SLQ parking garage, my short-heeled shoes clacking an angry beat on the pavement. But then I felt like I was being ill mannered and I already knew how annoying Evan could be when I was rude to him. “Thanks for driving me,” I muttered.
He grinned. “My pleasure, ma’am,” he said with a bad southern drawl.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Rhett Butler.”
There were people waiting for the elevator, so we went down the stairwell. I tried to maintain a good foot of space between us by hugging the rail.
Once we were settled in and buckled, he lifted something from the cup holder on his side. “Here’s my MP3 player if you want to listen to anything.”
I scrolled through his selection; there were a few modern bands, but it was mostly musicians from the sixties and seventies. “I think I’ve heard of Leonard Cohen before … is he any good?”
Evan grinned as we rolled toward the exit of the parking garage. “He’s the man. His stuff can be kind of melancholy though; he wrote poetry before he got into music.”
“Yeah?” I asked, interested in spite of myself. “Are you saying you think poets are melancholy?”
“Aren’t they?”
I thought back to all the poets I was familiar with. “I guess they can have a tendency toward that.”
“You like poetry?”
“I like to read it. I don’t write it or anything.”
“Can you recite something for me?”
I blinked at him and gave a nervous laugh. “What?”
“Something you like.”
He smiled at me, and I looked away, out the window. The streets were clogged with rush hour traffic. Riding with him would probably take longer than walking, but I wouldn’t be cold, at least.
I closed my eyes, leaned my head against the glass. And battling a surge of self-consciousness, I began to recite one of my favorite Walt Whitman poems. At first, my voice wobbled a bit, and I wished I’d picked something shorter. But partway through, I got lost in the words and the emotions, and my voice gradually steadied.
All I could hear when I finished was the whirr of the engine. My eyelids cracked open, and I glanced at Evan out of the corner of my eye.
He was staring at me. The car was stopped in traffic. A little hybrid in front of us sported a “Coexist” bumper sticker.
“That bad?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Is it really, really unmasculine if I say it sounded beautiful?”
My lips twitched. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Good,” he said, returning my grin.
“I guess I’m as big a dork as you are for having memorized the whole thing.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he echoed. “I took a poetry class in college and wrote some truly horrific poems.”
“Horrific? They couldn’t have been that bad.”
“They were,” he continued. “I’m pretty sure I rhymed spell and bell in one poem.”
“Okay, I take it back; that is bad.”
“Thanks.”
“What did you major in?” I asked. It occurred to me I didn’t know how old he was—I would place him in his mid-twenties, thirty at the most, but some people looked younger than they were. He could have graduated years ago.
“I double majored. Computer science and math.”
“Oh …” I cast another sidelong glance at him. “So you’re really smart?”
He scrunched up his face. “I guess I’m smart enough.”
I turned in my seat so I could face him, the seat belt digging into my ribs. “Are you being modest? I bet you have like a two hundred IQ and your brain is twice the size of a normal human’s.”
“Hardly anyone has an IQ of two hundred,” he pointed out. “Einstein’s estimated IQ was a hundred and sixty.”
“You know Einstein’s IQ?”
“Not cool?”
“Beyond not cool. So what exactly do you do at SLQ?”
“My official title is data software engineer.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “And in English that means?”
“Basically, I develop software that analyzes data.”
Since SLQ’s main purpose was to analyze data, Evan’s job title sounded pretty vital to the company. “That sounds important.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said.
I laughed. “You’re so modest. If I had a two hundred IQ and developed complex software I would talk it up.”
He grinned, shaking his head. “I should ask you to recite poetry more often.”
“Why?”
“Your mood—you seem more at ease, happier, even. Not that I don’t like you when you’re prickly too; I like all of your guises.”
He liked all of my guises. He said it as though I were an enigma, something both mysterious and intriguing, someone worth getting to know, som
eone worth knowing.
Had Drew ever thought of me like that? No, I didn’t think so. I’d never heard that same admiring tone from him.
I focused my attention back on the MP3 player in my hand. Keep it light. Keep it light. “Well don’t like me too much,” I said.
“It might be too late for that,” he responded softly.
My tongue felt thick in my mouth. So much for keeping it light.
I selected one of the Leonard Cohen albums and the strains of a guitar and a deep, lonesome voice filled the space between us. I needed that space like a drowning person needed a lifesaver.
I couldn’t think of another word to say, so I settled back in my seat and let Leonard’s crooning take up the silence.
*
“I just passed a really nice-looking guy in the parking lot,” Alyssa said, flinging her purse on the dining room table. “I wonder if he lives here.”
“What did he look like?” I asked, instantly suspicious. Evan had walked me to my apartment door, even though I’d told him it wasn’t necessary. He could have easily gone by Alyssa.
“Brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes.”
My fingers tightened around my open bottle, sending water cascading over the lip. “That’s Evan.” My voice sounded wrong. Tight. Brittle.
“Evan? You mean the guy you almost had drunken sex with?”
“Yeah, he’s the one.”
She lifted her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “What was he doing here?”
“He gave me a ride home. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” she echoed.
“Yes.” I wished I didn’t sound so defensive. But I couldn’t keep my voice from straining.
“Well, if that’s it, can I have his number?”
I nearly dropped the water bottle. “No!”
Alyssa started to laugh. “I’m kidding. Geez, it looked like you wanted to rip my head off.”
I was relieved when I heard the generic ring tone of my cell phone. My relief took a sharp dive when I saw Drew’s name. We hadn’t spoken since we’d broken up—I had no idea what he wanted to say to me, or what I might say to him.
I stepped just outside of the apartment so Alyssa wouldn’t overhear every word.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he said.
Silence.
“What do you want?” My voice came out sharp.
“We haven’t talked,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“Doing okay?” What, was I supposed to be lounging around the apartment in a bathrobe, crying and devouring a pint of ice cream? Okay, I had done that. But only the first couple of nights after our breakup. I’d pulled myself together since then.
“I didn’t want us to end like that.”
“I’m fine,” I said. And I thought I actually believed it. Amazing, considering we’d dated for a year and been broken up less than two weeks. It was strange how you assumed that certain events would really lay you low, and then they happened and life just kept marching on, dragging you in its wake.
“I saw you talking to a guy in the lobby at SLQ.”
“When?” I asked, like I didn’t have any clue what he was going on about.
“Last week. It was Friday I think.”
I paused, pretending I was really thinking it over. “Oh, I remember. That’s just a guy who works in Analytics.”
And who’d nearly felt me up in the break room earlier today. Heat pooled low as I remembered his touch, skilled and persuasive and …
“You’re not dating him?”
Broken from my reverie, I pulled the phone away from my ear and frowned at it for a second. “No,” I finally said, “but I don’t see why that matters to you.”
Another pause. “It would be kind of soon wouldn’t it?”
A huff of incredulous laughter escaped me. “I don’t know … have you gone on a date?”
The answer was in his silence.
“I’m glad to see the same standards apply to both of us,” I said sarcastically.
“Look, Dani. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I care about you.”
Not enough.
I shook my head. “That’s nice, but I’m kind of busy at the moment. Can we talk some other time?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I snapped the phone shut with a loud click, and stood alone in the hallway for a minute, wondering what the hell that had been about.
Chapter Eight
“Do you want to do something tonight?” Evan asked, catching me on my way out of the office.
I glanced around to see if he was talking to somebody else. Like Natalie.
The woman had stood in the doorway to Evan’s office for nearly ten minutes, chatting with him about an old rock band I’d never heard of. I doubted Natalie had ever heard of them either—she’d probably seen him wearing one of their t-shirts on casual Friday and done a Google search.
I’d felt Natalie’s eyes on me as she’d sauntered off, like she was hoping I’d taken notice of their interaction. She was quickly becoming a thorn in my side.
All the numbers on the computer screen had swirled away from comprehension, but I’d tried to muster up an expression of fascination, as though nothing short of a 5.0 earthquake would tear me away from my work.
Now I frowned at Evan as people walked past our motionless forms, parting like water around an immovable rock. “I told you I just broke up with my boyfriend.”
“And?”
My hand clutched the strap of my purse. “And, I don’t want to date you. And/or have sex with you.”
“No worries,” he said. “I have something in mind that’s a lot of fun and completely nonsexual.”
“What?”
“That would ruin the surprise. I’m trying to entice you.”
“I’m not enticed,” I responded.
“Not even a little bit?”
“No,” I shook my head to emphasize the point.
“Ok,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to go by myself. I was just thinking you could use a little fun.”
He walked backward facing me for a few steps before he turned.
“What do you mean I could use a little fun?” I asked, and he halted. “I have plenty of fun.”
He spun around. “When was the last time you did something just for the hell of it?”
I shoved my hands in my coat pockets. My eyebrows dove as I thought. And thought some more. And more …
And came up blank.
Hell’s bells, he was right. Failing my postcollege job search and postcollege relationship had pretty much sucked the amusement right out of my life.
“If you haven’t thought of something by now, it’s been too long.”
“So you think you can fix that?” I asked.
“Definitely.”
“Without sex?” I prodded skeptically.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Dani. You’re such a horndog.”
I bit my lip to rein in the smile threatening to inch across my face. “All right. I’m in.”
“We’ll swing by your apartment. You’ll need to change.”
Change? My eyes widened and my stomach clenched—images of all sorts of unpleasant, dangerous activities filled my mind—rock climbing, sky diving, bungee jumping. The possibilities, and the potential injuries, were endless.
“What exactly is your definition of fun?” I asked, trotting to keep up with him.
“You’ll see.” The grin he shot me didn’t make me feel any better.
*
Less than an hour later I had a helmet on my head, safety goggles over my eyes, and at Evan’s suggestion, I’d dressed in gray and dark green so I would blend into the landscape. I couldn’t believe I’d let him talk me into this.
“Are you sure it’s safe? I don’t trust any activity where I have to sign a waiver.”
“They’re just covering their asses; I think it’s pretty rare for someone to get injured.”
I peered at
him … I could barely see his face through all the headgear. “What does ‘rare’ mean? Are there ever fatalities?” I heard my voice rising.
He placed his hands on my shoulders, kneading them with his fingers until I relaxed slightly. “You worry a lot, don’t you?”
“All the time,” I admitted.
His hands on me felt so good I actually swayed toward him. I imagined a full-body massage, stretched out on soft blankets, oil glistening on my back, Evan’s fingertips … I blinked and shook my head and pushed away from him. Now was not the time for fantasizing.
“Okay, my goal is a worry-free night. You’re going to be fine. Do you trust me?”
I hesitated. Then I nodded.
“Good. You look sexy with that paintball gun by the way.”
“What?” I asked on a startled laugh.
“Hot. Like Lara Croft.”
“You think a fictional character is hot?”
But I was distracted by the other team coming out from the main building. Six young guys with tattoos and bulging muscles. They looked mean. Like the kind of guys you’d cross the street to avoid walking past.
We’d been paired with a family; a middle-aged couple who’d introduced themselves as Andy and Joan, and their two boys. They looked like the kind of people who had a house in the suburbs with a nice picket fence and a Labrador. I was starting to worry again.
“Does it hurt if you get hit?” I asked suddenly.
“I don’t know.”
My paint rifle swung toward Evan with the motion of my body. “When you say you don’t know; does that mean ‘you don’t know’ as in you’re just that good, or as in you’ve never done this before?”
“I’ve never done this before,” he said. “Breathe, Dani.”
I jumped as one of the guys from the other team yelled, “Come on, bitches! Let’s see what you’ve got!”
“He can talk to us like that?” I hissed, moving closer to Evan.
“I guess,” he said. “The referees don’t look too upset.”
The referees looked like they were probably friends with the other team. I had a feeling our ragtag group was walking into a massacre.
“Listen up!” the referee with the shaved head shouted, “this is a simple elimination game. The goal is to eliminate all of the other team’s players by marking them with a paintball. Aiming at the face on purpose is against the rules and will get you thrown out of the game. If you go out of the boundaries you’re eliminated. The base for the blue team is back there,” he pointed out a wooden wall near a particularly dense cluster of trees. They reached up, spindling toward the sky with withered, leafless fingers. “And the red team,” he indicated an area across the field. “Get to it.”