“Great.” She didn’t feel enthusiastic, and was grateful that the server chose that moment to come by.
“Ma’am? A gentleman across the room asked me to bring you and your date a drink, on him. It’s our best tequila. Casa Dragones Tequila Joven.” The server put down two crystal glasses, each filled with a small amount of amber liquid. “Typically people drink this slowly, savor it.”
“Who did that?” Mike looked around.
“He said enjoy for your first time.” The server smiled.
“What does that mean?” Mike blinked rapidly.
“It’s okay. It’s my boss. Well, maybe more of a coworker.” Harper pointed. “He’s here with a date. He’s probably trying to be generous with employee benefits. I bet he put it on his corporate card.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.” Mike blinked. “It’s a little strange, don’t you think?”
“He’s harmless,” Harper said. “Tell you what. We can send something back to their table and make it even.”
She pointed. Mike stiffened when he saw Zach, then, not surprisingly, his gaze lingered on the date. For a while. Even though she didn’t like Mike, Harper felt a pang of irritation. She didn’t want Mike. But still, having your date eye-fuck another woman wasn’t the best thing for your ego.
Harper lifted one of the heavy glasses of tequila. “Tell him thanks so very much,” she said sweetly, and tipped the liquid down her throat. As the amber rolled down, she felt instant heat suffuse her chest, and angels might have sang for a split second, providing a flash of brilliance, like the sun giving a final glow before dipping below the horizon, fast but clear. “Oh. My. God. That’s good.” She looked at the server, then Mike, then back at the server. “That’s so good! What is that, again?”
“Casa Dragones. It’s handcrafted in small batches in Mexico.” The server smiled. “I’ll tell him you liked it, then.”
“Tell him it went down easy, which he’s used to, I’m sure.”
“Um, excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. Just tell him thanks.” Harper smiled. “Mike, try this. It’s really good.” She pushed the second glass toward him.
“Maybe later.” Mike glanced over at Zach and the woman, lingering again on her, and Harper tried to hold back a grimace. So many things wrong with this date!
“Are you ready to order?” The server lifted her pad, pen poised.
“Yes.” Mike lifted his menu. “I’ll have the mixed grill, then tenderloin with the shrimp. And Harper will have—”
“I haven’t looked at the menu yet, actually.” Harper, surprised, wrinkled her brow.
“Oh. I was planning to order you the same thing I get. Best thing on the menu.” Mike gave her a brief smile. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”
“Okay, thanks, but I think I’d like to order for myself.” Harper picked up the sheaf of papers, and the chill in her voice was unmistakable.
The server averted her eyes and tapped her tablet. “Should I give you a few more minutes, then?”
“No! No, don’t go.” God, because if you do, that’s another ten minutes in this man’s dreadful company. “I’ll decide right now. I’ll…” She snatched at the first thing on the menu. “The full-sized garden salad with chicken.”
Suddenly something under appetizers caught her eye. “Do you really serve… rattlesnake here?”
The server nodded. “It’s cut into nuggets, breaded and deep-fried, and comes with our very own dill-tartar dipping sauce and the spine all arranged on a plate. It’s actually really good.”
“Let me guess,” Mike broke in. “It tastes like chicken.” He laughed.
The server’s smile remained pasted to her cheeks. “Haha! Actually it has a very unique flavor. Most people think it’s good, once they give it a try.”
“Ah, deep-fried anything all tastes the same. I think we’ll skip it.”
“I think we’ll send an order of it to the table that got us the tequila.” Harper narrowed her eyes. “And can you please make sure to tell the gentleman that I hope his first time isn’t too scary.”
“Not… too… scary.” The server wrote on her pad. “Okay. Got it. Sure thing.” She bustled off back to the kitchen.
“Why did you do that?” Mike seemed confused.
“Well, they got us tequila. It only seemed polite.” Harper tried to keep her voice neutral.
“Okay.” Mike was silent.
Harper glanced across the room. The brunette was laughing… loudly. Like a bray, really; or was that just her being jelly? No, other people were looking. That laugh was really obvious. Okay, it was mean to laugh at someone else’s laugh, but that was not a nice sound.
She smiled. Maybe Zach’s evening wasn’t perfect, either. “Oh, this is work, I have to get this,” she said, picking up her phone.
She typed, “Thanks for the tequila. It went down easy, like one of your dates.”
A second later, her phone buzzed. “Classy, Harper. Speaking of dates, can yours even go down? He looks like the stick up his ass goes all the way to his brain stem.”
She snorted.
“Work’s funny?” Mike’s face didn’t look as eager as before; clearly, the vibe of the entire dinner was affecting him at last.
She shook her head, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry. My, uh, coworker has a great sense of humor.”
“Well, if you’re going to be looking at work, I’ll take a few more minutes as well.” Mike’s voice was slightly stiff.
“Oh, go for it. Work must take a priority in our lives,” she proclaimed. “Life blood and all that.”
Never again. Never again would she accept a date that she knew wouldn’t work out. Life was too short to waste minutes of air and heartbeats suffering through this. It was like eating mothballs and lint in the back of a closet. Jesus. This was the exact opposite of leaping into something new and exciting. And it turned out that people could be reverse fractals, she had discovered. What seemed promising on the surface turned out to be boring and hollow. Someone that looked amazing at first glance turned out to be dull and banal when you looked at the details, finding nothing intricate, nothing worthy of further investigation.
While Mike was occupied, she checked her phone. Nothing. She slid her eyes across the room, and saw that Zach and his date had received the platters of rattlesnake nuggets. The date didn’t look enthused; she shook her head, no. Zach ate one, though, and when he licked some of the sauce from his lip, her stomach flipped. Then, when his date reached out to brush his lips with her finger, Harper quickly looked back at her table.
Her phone was silent.
The entrees arrived, her salad just as boring as one might expect, and while she wished she’d allowed Mike to order her a juicy steak like the one he was devouring, she forced herself to chatter with him and not to look over at Zach. When she accidentally caught a glimpse of his table, though, and saw the date leaning in and putting her hand on his, she almost felt like crying at the awful juxtaposition of his stellar date with her awful one.
“Hey, I’ll be right back. I need to go use the bathroom.” Mike set his napkin next to his plate.
Did people say that? Bathroom? She tried to think if she’d tell a date that she had to use the bathroom, or if she’d just go and say something like, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” If she did say where she was going, did she typically even say bathroom, or would she go with restroom? Vague thoughts of men’s rooms fluttered through her head; urinals, men aiming. Unbidden, an image of Mike holding a limp penis flashed before her eyes.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, with a small shudder. “Make it go away.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?” The server stood at her elbow.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Nothing.”
“Can I take your plate?”
“Please.” Harper gestured.
“Would you like a to-go box?” The server’s smile faded when she looked at the mostly uneaten salad. “Was everything all right? Is there something wrong w
ith the meal? I’d be happy to—”
“It was fine. No box. Thanks.” Harper couldn’t summon up more than that. Finally she lowered her voice. “The food is fine. I’m on a terrible date. I just… want it to end.”
“Oh, I see.” The server’s face turned sympathetic. “Been there. I’ll try to hurry up with the check. Hang in there, chica.” She patted Harper’s arm in a consoling kind of way. “Stay strong,” she whispered.
“Thanks.” Harper gave her a small smile.
Across the room, Zach’s date made the sound again, the one that was a piece of laughter. Zach seemed interested in her face and chest, so Harper looked out toward the black city blinking with lights and cars, shining in the dark like a million fireflies of energy.
Was her perfect man out there somewhere, if not in this city, then in one like it, elsewhere in the world? Was he thinking about her right now; well, not her, but the person he wanted? Chicago, New York, L.A., Paris, London—how could there be so many millions of people and not the one perfect match for her? She sighed and propped her chin on her hand. Too many and yet not enough. The world so full of life and yet sometimes so achingly lonely.
The server was back; Mike was not. “Hey, I told my bartender about your date situation,” she said in an undertone. “He’s totally sympathetic. We’ve got your back.”
Harper giggled. “Seriously?”
“It’s a slow night. We need something to do besides folding napkins. Um, I’m Nell.”
“Nell. Hi. I’m Harper.”
“Nice to meet you. So, hey, Justin? He’s distracting your guy for a while with a free drink offer at the bar. Then they’ll try to get him into the game.”
“What game?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I hate sports. Whatever stuff is on.” Nell waved her hand. “Basketball, maybe? Does your date like that?”
“He likes to talk,” Harper said drily. “About city buildings. Beyond that, I really can’t say.”
“So how long do you think he’ll stay away from the table if they start talking at the bar?” Nell raised her eyebrow.
“I don’t know, but he’s as not into me as I’m not into him, so he might stretch it out. I’m willing to tip the bartender an extra twenty if he can pull off ten minutes.”
“I’ll tell him.” Nell looked excited. “This is fun.”
“More fun than the original date, definitely.” Harper glanced over, but couldn’t see the bar from her seat. Then she looked over at Zach, who was looking at her. She turned red and looked away.
“So, um, what’s the deal with that table over there? Are you friends with them?” Nell lowered her voice.
“Well, he’s my boss, and that’s his date.” She cleared her throat. “We’re just in town together on a business trip.”
“I’d be glad to go on a business trip with him,” Nell said. “He’s really hot.”
“Yes, but he’s also sort of a dick. I think he sleeps around a lot.”
“Even better. Just kidding!” Nell added quickly. “He keeps looking over here, though.”
“Hmm.”
“He seemed very interested in how you liked the tequila. He asked me twice.”
“Okay.”
“He laughed when I told him the thing you said. I don’t think his date thought it was very funny, though. She made this kind of face, you know? Like this?” Nell pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “So I said it again, to see if she’d make the face again, and she did. It was really very funny. I’m studying psychology at ASU, you know? We’re doing a lesson on stimuli and response. It sort of fit right in.”
“He seemed interested? Really?” Harper glanced over.
“Uh-huh.” Nell smiled. “Well, I gotta get back to my duties. I’ll check on the, you know, situation at the bar, and report back.”
“Thanks.”
CHAPTER 20
Her phone buzzed. “Scared your date off so soon? Too bad.”
She shook her head with a smile. “He heard your date laugh and thought it was a rabid hyena coming to eat him, so he hid in the men’s room. My guess? He’s crouched in a urinal, weeping. Yours is probably going to vomit up all of her food right now.”
Across the room, Zach guffawed. Her phone buzzed. “You have no respect. Nobody ever taught you manners?”
“Nope, can’t say they did.”
She hesitated, wanting to toss caution away and write something undeniably sexy. Something that would let him know that she was sick of this bet, sick of this flirtation with him, and that what she wanted was to have him take her to their hotel and fuck her to the stars and back.
If she liked him, and the fragile magic they’d been building this trip was going to shatter anyway, the instant they returned to reality? Why not seize the day and enjoy the hell out of this chance?
She leapt. “You think you’re up for the job?”
Pause. Then, “Oh, hell, yes.”
“How?”
“I have creative ways of getting a woman to apologize for her behavior, Harper.”
“Apologize for what? That your date is a whore with a laugh like a sick sea lion? Or that mine is a walking Ken doll whose batteries are wearing out?”
Again, he laughed. “Apologize for your dirty mouth, that’s what.”
“Trust me, there are situations where you’d be begging me to use that dirty mouth on you, Zach.”
“Such as?” He wasn’t laughing anymore. Across the room, he’d angled his chair to face in her direction. He was leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees, staring straight at her, phone in one hand.
She swallowed hard. She crossed her legs and watched him watch her. “Use your imagination.” Pangs of arousal fluttered through her belly.
“You’re playing with fire, Harper.”
“Maybe I want to get burned.”
“You can’t handle my kind of heat.”
“Bring it.”
“Too bad for you that I can’t mess around with anyone right now, because if I could, I’d choose you. And I’d make it so good, Harper. Five minutes and I’d have you screaming my name.”
She sucked in a breath. “You’re still sticking to the bet?”
“Unless you take a photograph, I’m not even going to kiss anyone. I promised.”
Suddenly, Mike was back with drinks in his hands, a smile on his face. “Sorry I took so long, but the server told me you were on a work phone call and that she’d wave me over when you were done. The bartender gave me free drinks. Oh, there’s one for you, too.” He slid something over, fruity and strong, with a parasol and a cherry on a stick. “I’m totally going to leave them a great review on Yelp. Free drinks, right? I’m not done with my steak, but you can enjoy this while I eat.”
“Oh, I sure will.”
Distracted, all she could think about was Zach, Zach. Zach’s mouth. Zach’s body.
Mike seemed to have received a burst of energy along with the drinks. “So can I tell you more about my next job? So there’s this hotel in Atlanta that used the modular construction, and they had a breakthrough on how they managed the scaffolding. And we want to use it as inspiration. Not to copy, just as motivation. You know the difference, right? So…”
Across the room, Zach’s date was settled back in her chair, but now the body language was different—instead of leaning in, she sat upright in her chair, fiddling with her hemline, glancing around the room.
Harper started when her phone buzzed. “Using that dirty mouth on your drink, I see.”
“A girl has to keep busy somehow.”
“I know how to keep those lips busy.”
“Only if yours get busy with your tongue first. And I’m not interested in sloppy seconds, so you’re gonna have to ditch the date.”
“You want to play games? All right. Imagine this, Harper. You’re not wearing any panties. I take you out onto that patio and put you on a table and spread those thighs. Then I’ll show you what I can do with my tongue. Except I can’t, right, because
of the bet.”
She sucked in a breath. His eyes, across the room, glittered at her. She looked away.
Mike shoved a mouthful of steak and chewed, and the sound of his mastication made her want to cover her ears. There was a word for it; she’d Googled it one time. Misophonia: The act of being repulsed by certain common sounds, like chewing or breathing,that are unnoticed by most people. But she didn’t get it all the time, so it wasn’t, like, a psychological condition. It was just now, with her date, who was mashing his mouthful like slushy cud.
“Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.” She smirked to herself and hurried to the restroom, where she enclosed herself in a stall and slid off her G-string. She bit her lip, folding it into her purse, then went up to the bar. “Justin? Thanks for helping out with my date thing.” She pointed behind her.
“I had him here for at least ten minutes. Pretty wicked awesome.” Justin, built and dark, a twenty-five-year-old hottie, smiled and propped his arms on the counter, popping his muscles. She smiled. Such a showboat playboy, but also cute.
Nell joined them. “Hope you liked the delay!” she sang out, putting down her tray and wipe rag. “There’s nothing we won’t do for our customers, Harper.”
Harper fished a five and a twenty from her purse and passed them over. “The service here was excellent. My compliments to the manager.”
Nell smiled. “If you want to leave us a rave review online, we totally wouldn’t complain.”
“Would you, by any chance, have an envelope?” Harper bit her lip. “Just a plain mailing envelope. I need to send a, ah, note. To my boss.”
“A note.” Nell raised an eyebrow. “To your boss. Right now?”
“Well, it’s, you know, kind of far to walk across the room.” Harper nodded.
“So it is. Right? Like, at least twenty or thirty steps. I get you.” Nell grinned.
“For a tip like this, you can have an envelope and a cherry on top.” Justin bent down. “Just a sec. We have some old office stuff here that the manager stores.” Shuffling noises ensued, then he reemerged with a manila envelope in his hand. “Will this work?”
“Oh, that’s actually perfect. “
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