“Can I do something for you, Mr. Thorpe?” I ask in my coolest voice.
He’s not buying my act. His naughty schoolboy grin makes me tingle.
“I was talking to Nix, and they’re having a hard time with the Napa campaign. Since we’re so far ahead on Devil’s Harp, I offered to help them out a bit. Thought you and I could bounce some ideas around over dinner. What do you think?”
Another ‘sort of’ date. Is this the norm in the real world? Does anyone ever ask a girl to dinner anymore?
“Sure.” My stomach flips a couple times. “I think that sounds great.”
“I’ll text you,” Declan says. He runs his thumbs up the inside of his suspenders once before he walks away.
Shutter lets Declan make it back to his desk before he starts in on the teasing. “Looks like someone got a taste and he wants more Indigo.”
“Max,” I correct him, “and it’s work, not pleasure.”
Delores shoots me a dubious glance over the top of her file folder. “I saw that picture, ain’t nothing about that boy that’s looking to work.”
I’m glad my leg is beneath my desk so no one can see the way it’s bouncing out of control.
Chapter 12
I’m not even sure how to dress for a business date. It wasn’t covered under my mother’s tutelage. What to wear to a congress gala, sure. What to wear to a tennis match in Germany, absolutely. What type of necklace to wear when he wears a sports jacket and jeans? All textbook answers. But I fear she never expected me to have a career, so what would be the point of learning business etiquette?
The dress I settle on is black, sleeveless, and hits mid-thigh. It’s business, but also feminine enough that I don’t look like I’m closed off to the idea of possible romance.
Oh, who talks like this? Someone who’s only ever seen romance on the big screen, that’s who. Living with two parents who have zero inclination for the physical, growing up where every relationship and marriage is nothing more than a political or economic power play, it’s not like I know much.
I’ve devoured every romantic movie I could get my hands on. That’s the only reason I knew how to act with Declan at the shoot. Reg has hardly kissed me over the years. I could count the occasions on two hands. He says it’s distracting. I think politics are the only love interest he’ll ever have. Maybe I did him a favor cutting him loose.
I’m starving for the real thing, and it’s frustrating because at the same time I want to be independent. Some of Reg’s friends used to talk about casual relationships, and I have to admit that it sounds fun, all the romance, none of the strings.
I know better.
I’m too proper, raised too well with too many rules ingrained in my mind like hardware. Casual isn’t my style. I’m all in or nothing.
I consider heels, but the address he texted me is a mile and a half away. But flats say sensible librarian and nothing about my thoughts related to Declan are sensible. I opt for a kitten heel, just an inch or so lift. How bad could it hurt?
∞ ∞ ∞
Bad. They hurt bad. I make it three blocks before I regret my choice. If I wasn’t so worried about catching hepatitis from the sidewalk, I might have taken them off and gone barefoot. Instead, I limp the remaining distance and tell myself I can take them off under the table.
Checking my phone for the exact address. The brick building matches what he sent me, but Declan isn’t in sight. I’m a couple minutes late. Immediately, I worry that he gave up on me. For the hundredth time, I remind myself it’s not actually a date. It’s work. People don’t ditch work meetings because of a little tardiness. Granted, I have my mother’s voice in my head telling me what a disgrace I am for being even the slightest fraction of time late. It doesn’t matter that I want to chop both of my feet off to escape the pain of newly formed blisters.
“Indigo,” Declan says as he swings open the interior door of the restaurant, “sorry, I was waiting inside for you. I hope you weren’t out here long.”
“No, not at all,” I say before I tag on my reminder, “and it’s Max now.”
“Right,” he smiles and it’s authentic, maybe because he likes the name better, or maybe because he likes me. “I hope you eat Italian.”
“I do,” I say as I follow him in.
I haven’t had it since I was a kid. My mother always said, “If you eat Italian, you’ll look Italian.” I can remember arguing that most supermodels were Italian, to which she argued that they didn’t eat, so it didn’t count. “You’ll be thick and hairy before you know it and no one will want you, Harper.”
Will the day come where I won’t hear her voice in my head anymore? I hope so because Declan is talking, and I’ve missed half of what he said because I’m obsessing over what my mother thinks of me.
“I’m thinking, it would be really great if we could keep the image you have for the Napa account, but maybe tweak it somehow.”
I slide into the booth across from him. The hostess sat us in a quiet corner and placed a couple menus before she left, but the food isn’t what’s on my mind. No, I’m trying to think of a reason why I can’t remember anything about this account.
Telling him the truth, isn’t an option.
“Can you review your notes from the interview for me?” I ask as I set the menu aside.
My words spark annoyance in him. “Did you even read them in the first place?”
“No.” I hate that it’s the one time I get to tell the truth. “But I’m interested now.”
His tongue runs over his bottom lip as he thinks about it. His teeth catch his lip before it pulls through and nods. “Okay fine. They want to appeal to a younger market, I think that’s where you were going with the bikini model, but they still want all the sophistication they normally cater to.” He slipped my, well Indigo’s, copy from the file. “It’s not horrible, but it’s too risqué for the client.”
My eyes dart to the bare skin of the model. It’s too much for me and my sensibility, that’s for sure.
“What about cropping it here?” I ask as I cover the top half and zone in on the heel crushing the grapes. We could tagline it with, ‘not your grandma’s vacation spot,’ or something like that.”
Declan shifted and tried to see what I was showing him. “So, the shoe?”
“We could have them add in the good food behind her, maybe a set of pearls draped over her toe, all the sophistication with some added umph,” I say.
His smile goes crooked at the sound I make to drive my point home. “Forgive me, Max, but I think your umph got you into trouble in the first place.”
“But they need something new and eye catching, or they wouldn’t have come to us for this,” I point out.
The picture slips from beneath my fingers as he pulls it back to his side. With a critical eye he examines it, folding here, blocking parts off with his menu.
“Just the shoe,” he whispers as if he gets it for the first time. “It’s crushing the grapes, like homage to the old ways, all the while rebelling against the tradition.” He looks up and all I see is that deep blue again. “You really are brilliant, Max.”
I can’t help but beam a bit. It’s not every day that I’m appreciated for my intelligence. Actually, it’s not any day.
“I love this work.” I glance over the menu. Pasta. So many types of pasta. “What’s good?” I ask.
“Well, I’ve had pretty much everything, so you’re safe. My daughter likes the cheese ravioli, and she’s pretty picky.”
Declan lights up when he talks about her. Has my father ever reacted like that when he talks about me?
“Where is she tonight? Is she with a sitter again?” I want to know more about his daughter Rory, even if it’s just so he stays this happy.
All that happiness fades like a candle blown out.
“She’s with her mother this week.”
“Oh,” is all I can manage at first. I feel like I should apologize for something, my words, his failed marriage, something. “Is
that…” my words fade into themselves.
What was I going to ask? Is it hard being divorced? Is it still civil between them? Is it difficult for their daughter to have parents in separate houses? None of those ideas are even close to appropriate, and yet I want to know the answers to all of them.
“Yeah,” he says and the tone tells me I’m dead on for how hard it all can be. “Rory handles it pretty well, but Samantha, my ex-wife, she isn’t as structured as I am. Bedtime is flexible. Dinner is hot dogs from a vendor somewhere around eleven. I’ll spend the next two weeks trying to get Rory back on a schedule, which isn’t easy at her age.”
I always figured moms were the ones to do all the hard stuff. Dads were supposed to live at work, come home cranky, and say things like, “go apologize to your mother,” then disappear behind a newspaper. My desire to know more about his ex and how they met is equally weighed with my need to remain socially polite.
The waitress returns and takes our orders. He has house lasagna, and I opt for fettuccine alfredo because I can remember having it as a child. She smiles and leaves us to our heavy silence.
“We met in college,” he says after a moment more. Maybe he senses my question, or maybe he wants an audience. I get the feeling he doesn’t have many people in his life he can vent to. “She was really exciting. We didn’t date for a long time. We were friends, nothing more. She went her way, and I went mine after graduation. Then about two years ago I ran into her at a party. She hadn’t changed and I don’t know, working this job of endless interviews, statistics and monotony, I thought Samantha was what I wanted to give me some adventure.” Declan is lost in a memory, far away from me and the Italian restaurant with the corner booth. “More importantly, I thought I was what she wanted.”
“You weren’t?” I ask mostly because I can’t see what could possibly be wrong with him. Does he have an annoying habit? A secret fetish for collecting gnomes or something?
“I guess not. Motherhood didn’t help. It was right before Rory’s first birthday that Samantha served me with divorce papers. Didn’t even want custody.”
“But she has partial custody now?”
He releases one bitter laugh, void of mirth. “Her lawyer’s idea. For child support. She used Rory as leverage.”
Close as I can tell, Samantha and my mother would get along well, very similar parenting philosophies. Children are pawns.
“I’m sorry, Declan.” I set my hand over his. It’s only after I feel the warmth of his skin that I start to wonder if it was a bold move, but he catches my finger with his thumb and smiles.
“This is depressing, we have got to have something better to talk about than this,” he says, but I swear the glint of tears catch the low light. “Tell me about you.”
“I’m an only child,” I say without thinking. Is Indigo an only child? Too late now. “Raised in the south by strict parents.”
“That explains the accent I’ve been hearing break through every now and then. You hide it well. I had no idea until now. Who are you dating these days?”
“No one, I’m single,” I say because it’s true. I know Indigo has a reputation, but I was raised to avoid the appearance of evil and blast it all if I ever plan to go against that. It’ll all be a big mess for Indigo to clean up when she gets back, but my foot is beyond my mouth, it’s clear down my throat at this point. Nowhere to go but deeper.
“Are you sure? I mean, I know you were with Fynn for a while.”
“That brute I chased out of the supply closet?”
Declan laughed at my words. “Yeah, the same brute I caught you with last week in that same supply closet. My fault for needing staples I guess.”
I feel ill at the world she’s handed me.
“I told you, I’m different now. Whole new person.”
“Yeah,” he grins over his Coke, “Max.”
Our waitress returns with our food. I nearly hyperventilate at not only a pile of pasta covered in heavy cream and butter, but greasy breadsticks on the side.
Carbs, carbs and more carbs.
Yes please.
We spend the remainder of our evening discussing ideas for not only the Napa campaign, but Devil’s Harp Ale as well. I manage to keep my happy food noises to quiet and stop myself the one time I start dancing in my side of the booth because the food is so decadent.
Thankfully he only barely notices.
I think.
As the waitress clears our plates, I feel like I’ve gained twenty pounds. I try to remind myself that I burned all those calories at boot camp, but my mother’s derogatory voice in my head is stronger.
“Eat too much?” Declan asks me.
“No,” I say quickly and wonder if I look puffy. Mother always said carbs would make me puffy.
“I don’t mean it like it’s a bad thing. I like a girl who can eat. I hate going out and watching a girl pick through lettuce like a couple leaves will fill her up.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “you know she goes home and binges like a hog.”
The things I say surprise him, and I’m happy to see his shock melt into amusement.
“You park on the street?” he asks as he finishes with the check.
“No,” I shift to slip my shoes back on from where I’ve ditched them through dinner, “I walked.”
He thinks I’m joking, but a quick look tells him that I’m serious. “How far is it to your place?”
“A little over a mile.” I try not to wince when my heel slips into my shoe.
He’s watching it all, the blistered heel, the little limp I take when I stand, how could he miss it? I swear my feet swelled through dinner, puffy exactly like my mother threatened.
“I’m driving you home.” He says it not like a question but like something that is happening. Maybe I should feel offended that he didn’t ask, but I feel cared for and I take the arm he offers me.
His car is parked up the street, a nondescript hybrid sedan that likely has great gas mileage, just as sensible as he is. Declan gets my door for me and his hand catches mine for a split second as I climb in. He jogs around the opposite side and slips in with a smile. Is he excited to take me home? Did I miss something?
I guide him through the turns back to my place. The walk that took me over twenty minutes takes all of three minutes in a car. It surprises me when he parks in an empty space instead of dropping me off by the curb. Reg might not have slowed down. He was always quick to let me go after our social obligations were over.
“Which one are you?” Declan asks as I catch up to him outside the car.
“Twenty-five B,” I say, pointing towards Indigo’s apartment. It’s dumb because the sun has set and there’s hardly anything to see even in the street lights.
“This is a nice place,” he says as he follows me. “Still, you can never be too careful in the city. I’ll walk you to your door.”
I’ve seen moments like this in the movies, excuses men make to walk a girl home, but I doubt that’s what’s happening. He doesn’t want to show up to the office tomorrow to find out I was brutally murdered four feet from my door. Imagine all the work he’d have without me.
Our feet echo in the stairwell. Declan has stopped talking. I catch him biting his lip when I see him out of the corner of my eye. His hands keep clenching and unclenching as if he’s draining the anxiety from them.
“This was fun, right?” he asks as we step up to the second floor landing. He clears his throat as if he’s going to say more, but he doesn’t.
“Yeah,” I agree as I look for the key in my purse. “The food was amazing. Thank you for suggesting the place.”
“Maybe we can go again. You can try something else. It’s so close to my place Rory and I are there at least twice a week.”
“Another work meeting?” My keys jingle in my hand, and I stop at my door.
Declan smooths his palms down the front of his slacks. “Or even a date, if you wanted.”
He’s closer than I expected him to be. My back is n
early against my door, but I don’t feel trapped by him. Declan is watching me, waiting for something. I feel as though we are speaking two different languages, and he’s asked me a question I don’t know how to answer.
“Whichever.” I don’t want to presume that he likes me that way, maybe he doesn’t want me to feel bad.
“Good night,” I say, but he doesn’t leave. He moves closer. Is he going to hug me? Do people hug after business dates, or is this more than that? Was this a real date? Is he going to kiss me? I have zero experience in this realm.
The first time Reg kissed me we were both thirteen and he prefaced it with, “I’m going to be President of the United States one day. That means you’ll be First Lady. Are you willing to make that kind of commitment?” I don’t think I answered, or maybe I nodded, I don’t know. The hopeless romantic in me wanted my first kiss. As let downs go, it was epic. His lips were hard, puckered too tight like a sticky hard candy glued to his mouth. It never got much better from there.
Every time he kissed me, it was because of a crowd, or a photo op, or because my mother said it was time. I’d spent countless secret hours memorizing the kiss scenes from my favorite movies, but reality was nowhere near what I’d watched on the big screen. Every kiss was laced with, “Let’s get it over with,” and eventually I gave up any expectations I’d ever had.
But Declan’s fingers tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear. As he rounds my lobe, he catches my jaw and urges me closer. I close my eyes because that’s what they do in the movies, and his lips press against mine.
On one of my childhood trips to my uncle’s house, I helped him dig up some of his irrigation pipes. The ground was rock-hard red clay. Jerry had to use a steel pry bar to stab the earth, then break it apart so he could get the shovel in deep enough to make an impact. I watched him slam against the ground, the thump reverberated not only in my feet, but in the beat of my heart as well. The rhythm, the motion, all of it made it impossible to look away as I watched the cracks spread and widen under the pressure. Then, wham, a flash of light. My eyes widened at the sight of the tiny spark. The steel ignited against the small rock hidden beneath the surface. It mesmerized me, something striking, beautiful, new, out of nothing. Uncle Jerry must have seen the way it appealed to me because he slammed the pry bar hard again to watch my fascination.
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