Getting the Feels #2
He stood up and she almost cringed at the sight of him.
His tie was undone, the tails of it hanging over his broad chest. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing the very lickable spot at his collar bone.
She wanted to rip open that shirt just to see what was underneath it.
She briefly shut her eyes and started a slow chant in her head.
Tyler Evans is not sexy.
Tyler Evans is not sexy.
She opened her eyes and had to hold back a sigh of disappointment. Well, that didn’t work.
“Okay.” She turned and started heading to the elevators. “I’ll drive.”
* * * * *
“Where are we?” Tyler asked, looking warily out the window as Jordan parked the car. “You’ve taken us to Mugger Central.”
She rolled her eyes and opened her door. “C’mon, Tyler. It’s not that bad. I’ve been coming here for years.”
He got out of the car and assessed his surrounding as fear escalated inside him.
The buildings around them were dilapidated with graffiti sprayed all over the walls.
The whole block looked neglected, abandoned almost. One in every six street lamps actually worked and the dim light only made everything look more eerie and…
dangerous. The only real light seem to come from the fluorescent red and yellow sign, flashing Q’s above them.
“Let’s get it to go,” he suggested, but she simply shook her head. “Jordan, I’d like to point out that I’m more of a flight than a fight guy, so if shit goes down, it’s every man for himself.”
She laughed. “Thanks for letting me know.” He held the door open for her and she walked in. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use a brown word before. Did you just say if shit goes down?”
“Well, when in Rome,” Tyler said with half a smile, “speak as the Romans do.”
She giggled again and greeted the man behind the bar. “Hey, Freddy.”
Once inside, he felt a bit more relaxed.
There were no other customers so that ruled out the possibility of a bar-fight.
It wasn’t really a restaurant. It was a pool hall that just so happened to serve food as well.
Now the simple name Q’s seemed to make sense.
Pool tables were lined up at the back. The bar was in front, near the entrance, with a flat screen T.V mounted on the right corner.
Tyler wasn’t really one for sports, but he assumed that this place would be packed when a big game was on.
There were red vinyl seating booths along one wall and Jordan pulled off her suit jacket and slid into one of them.
“So what shall we get?” she asked.
“Maybe some line fish or grilled calamari.”
She smiled. “Tyler, look around. This is not a place that serves calamari. You get steak or you get a burger. Both come with fries and onion rings so take your pick.”
“There are only two things on the menu?” he asked in shock.
“Yep.”
“Okay…steak.”
“Hey, Freddy,” Jordan shouted. “Two steaks.”
“Beer?” Freddy shouted back.
“Sure.”
Their food was served hot in less than twenty minutes and Tyler had to admit that it was the best food he’d eaten in a long time.
The meat was tender and juicy and to wash it down with an ice-cold beer was a treat.
The cheap beer, however, was quite addictive and the more they drank, the more the conversation regressed.
They had started off talking about fancy cars, then moved on to reality TV shows.
After that was a particularly mind-numbing chat about chicken farming, but when she looked up at him with mischief in her blue-gray eyes, he knew her next question was going to be trouble.
“Have you ever laughed so hard you farted?”
Tyler’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her with a gob smacked expression. “What?”
“Have you ever…laughed so hard…you farted?”
“Jordan, I don’t feel comfortable—”
“Answer the question,” she said, pointing her knife at him like she was going to use it as a weapon.
“Yeah,” he admitted, although he was not happy to admit such a thing. “Matt and I were still in high school and he played this silly prank on our chemistry teacher. I didn’t know what he was up to, but the next thing I see is this woman running out of the chem lab and her face is…blue and…yeah…”
“Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, I laughed so hard…” He let out a heavy breath of annoyance and rolled his eyes. “…I farted.”
She erupted with laughter, captivating and uninhibited and that brought an instant grin to his face.
He liked watching her laugh. Her smile was radiant.
The beer reddened her cheeks and as she pushed her glasses up onto her head to wipe her eyes, he noticed that she was dangerously on the verge of not looking like Jordan anymore.
Her sleeves were rolled up and the top two buttons of her light blue blouse were unfastened.
She looked relaxed, not at all like the deadline-driven maniac he was used to.
So he was kind of on a third not-a-date with Jordan and two things stood out.
It was much less painful when she asked and he was a lot less edgy when he wasn’t constantly looking around for Trisha.
He’d been noticing little things about her, but being with her now without any pretense and the heavy weight of a lie was just…
nice. They had nothing in common, yet there had not been one stilted moment in the conversation.
Tyler cleared his throat as her laughter died down. “Have you ever?”
“I have,” she said, taking another sip of her beer, though she was not ashamed of admitting it.
“My brother, Kevin, and I are the youngest in the family and we always got the dumb chores. Every Saturday we had to go into town and buy groceries for my mom. So one fateful morning, we walk down the street, we get Perry—”
“Who’s Perry?”
“He’s my other brother who just so happened to be born to different parents.”
Tyler nodded. He understood what she meant. He felt the same way about Matt.
“So we get milk and eggs and some other stuff…I can’t remember.
The two of them are only eight years old and Bink was super tiny when he was younger, so I give him the eggs ’cause it’s the lightest thing to carry, I give Perry two cartons of milk, and I’ve got everything else.
” Her smile widened, making her look even more adorable.
“Now we’re walking past one of the houses at the top of the street and we hear this growling…
and it sounds quite vicious. Then out of nowhere, this little poodle jumps out and Kevin just bullets down the street and this dog goes after him.
He’s running. He’s screaming. He’s throwing eggs, but this dog is relentless. ”
He noticed that each part of the story was accompanied by hand gestures and after she threw an imaginary egg, he realized he liked watching her tell stories too.
“So eventually he throws the box, but it hits Perry in the face and he falls over and milk is gushing everywhere. Then in one swift jump, Bink’s over the fence and in our yard, yelling for my mom to open the door.
Perry’s still on the ground drenched in milk, both of them completely annihilated by this tiny, little poodle.
And you probably think I’m the worst big sister in the world, but I couldn’t help myself. ”
“And?” he asked with amusement.
“And…I laughed so hard…” She could barely keep her giggles in anymore. “I farted.”
He was now the one who couldn’t hold back his laughter. Somehow it was much funnier hearing it than saying it. It was rubbish. They were talking about utter rubbish and yet he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun.
“You’re silly, Jordan,” he said more to himself than to her.
“Sometimes a little bit of silly is a good thing.”
“You make it a good thing all the time.” He didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out. And when he noticed the shy smile on her face and the redness that returned to her cheeks, he knew he needed a diversion. “You call your brother Bink?”
“Did I say Bink? Sorry. Force of habit, I guess.” He didn’t ask for further information, but she gave it anyway.
“When he was three, he used to have trouble sleeping on his own. Nightmares. I had a little teddy bear named Binky-boo. He started talking really late so he couldn’t say Binky-boo.
He could only get Bink out. Whenever I heard him fussing, I’d go into his room and he’d ask for Bink and then I’d cuddle up with him and the bear until he fell asleep on my lap.
The name just stuck.” She shrugged. “He’s also the only one of us that doesn’t have a stupid middle name, so it’s also kind of a small payback. ”
He smiled as she reminisced. She loved her family. It was apparent from lightness in her voice, the slight gleam in her eyes. Something was happening. Either he was becoming more inebriated, or she was becoming more appealing. “Maybe you’re not the world’s worst big sister,” he said.
“At least not all the time.” She began fiddling with the pins in her hair, removing them one by one and placing it on the table. Don’t do it, the voice in his head shouted. Don’t do it!
But it was too late. The dark mass of curls cascaded over her shoulders and his professional accountant was gone.
All that remained was this Jordan. The Jordan that kept popping into his head.
There was nothing particularly special about this Jordan.
She was simple and ordinary, yet so exceptionally beautiful in her simplicity, so completely fascinating in her ordinariness.
He needed a diversion and he needed it now!
“You wanna play some pool?” he asked.
“Sure.” She stood up and walked with him to the tables. “You any good?”
“Yeah, pretty good. You?”
“I’m alright. A little rusty, though. Haven’t played in a while.”
Jordan racked up the balls and Tyler took the first shot, sinking two balls.
He aimed again but the ball missed the pocket and rolled to the other end of the table.
Jordan leaned over the table, pool cue in hand, but it slipped as she was about to take the shot and the white ball went in the opposite direction of where she was aiming.
“Here.” He trotted around the table to assist her.
“Hold it like this.” His left hand went over her left hand, his right hand over her right hand as she held the cue stick, her back against his chest as he leaned over her.
Being so close, he got the slight scent of her cinnamon and vanilla perfume and remnants of the cheap beer. The smell was intoxicating.
Nice diversion!
“So like this?” she asked and he remembered that he was supposed to be tutoring her.
Her soft hair tickled his chin, the soft curve of her ass pressing suggestively against his pelvis. And he was feeling very open to suggestion right now.
Steady, Tyler. It’s just the alcohol. “Yeah…and if you balance the cue on your left hand like this…” He adjusted her fingers slightly and placed the cue over her thumb and index finger. “It’s a bit more stable.”
She took the shot and the ball went spinning into the pocket. She glanced back and smiled at him. “You’re not a bad teacher, Tyler.”
They played a few more shots and he could tell that she wasn’t so rusty anymore.
“Let’s put money on the next game,” she suggested.
“How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“You’re on.”
He racked up the balls and Jordan was the first to shoot. She ended up winning the game on a technicality and looked very pleased with herself.
“Ooh, how does it feel to have your ass handed to you by a girl?”
“There’s no need to be so smug. I would have won if the white ball didn’t drop.”
She walked towards him and tilted her head slightly to look up at him, her face mere inches from his. How soft are those lips?
“Okay,” she said, challenge gleaming in her eyes. “Double or nothing next game,”
“Fine,” he agreed, walking away before he made his thoughts a reality.
She racked up the balls and he took the first shot, sinking three balls before it was her turn. She walked to the table and studied every detail before she aimed. The next few seconds went by at an incredible speed, but by the end of it, she had sunk every one of her balls, including the black.
“Ouch, Tyler,” she said and he’d come to recognize her mocking tone. “That must have hurt. The ass whipping you just got…must’ve hurt.” She held out her hand. “Pay up.”
He rolled his eyes as he pulled out his wallet.
“I’m going to the men’s room,” he said, handing over her winnings.
“Give you some time to stop being such a sore winner.” He walked down the corridor to the restroom and as he made his way back to the pool tables a few minutes later, he noticed the plaques and pictures hanging on the wall.
He stopped for a closer look and discovered yet another intriguing fact about his accountant, Jordan Shepard.
“Regional Champion three years in a row?” he asked as he neared her.
She pulled her lips in to stop a smile and looked sheepish all of sudden.
“League Champion five years running?”
“Oh, I completely…forgot…about that.”
“Not buying it.”
He approached her slowly and stopped too close for it to be considered a safe distance.
“I beat you fair and square,” she said.
“I was hustled.”
She stuck her nose in the air, her pretty eyes dancing playfully as she fought a smile. “Well, then let’s have a rematch.”
“I want my money back.”
“I want another beer.”
I want to kiss you right now. “You’re buying,” is what he chose to say instead.