Fallon #3
He picks up the menu and begins reading it, but I can’t stop staring at him.
He’s undoubtedly the most gorgeous man in existence.
The videos don’t do him justice. He oozes sex appeal from every pore without a single ounce of realization.
I think I’m literally salivating as I watch him study the menu.
The waitress appears and asks us if we’re ready to order. I’m about to tell her I haven’t even looked at the menu yet, but before I can do so, Jett orders our drinks, appetizers, and meals, telling her when we’d like each so they don’t all come out too quickly.
I’ve never once in my life seen a man do that in a restaurant. It’s almost out of a movie or a romance novel. The feminist in me wants to be outraged, but in reality, his take-charge demeanor is fucking hot. I wonder if he’s this domineering in bed.
I don’t know what he ordered and, frankly, I don’t care. I have this overwhelming urge for him to boss me around. Maybe throw me around too.
“…today?” he questions, even though I have no clue what he asked because I’m imagining this mountain of a sexy man throwing me down on a bed and having his wicked way with me.
I force my sex-deprived head to focus. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked what you did today.”
“Oh, I worked with Bailey. That’s—”
“I know who she is,” he interrupts. “What happened to her is horrible. I hope she’s doing well.”
“She’s doing great. I worked with her all morning and into the early afternoon. Her progress is honestly miraculous. Then I had a few things to do with my dau…Harper, and then I went home to get ready. My close friend Reggie came over to help.”
“Is she the work friend or one of Harper’s friends’ parents?”
I can’t help but smile. He really paid attention to everything I wrote in our messages. “She’s the work friend. She’s a nurse. What about you? What did you do today?”
He sighs. “Dealing with a few loose ends with the team. The premature end of our season has caused a bit of turmoil.”
My face falls. “I’m sorry about that. Tough game. Your defense was brutal.”
He chuckles. “Yes, it was. Are you a big football fan?”
Hmm, should I admit I’ve been a little more of a fan since I met him? I shrug, acting unaffected. “I watch the games for the coach. He’s kind of a cutie. I enjoy it when he yells and screams at people on the sidelines.”
His green eyes sparkle with amusement. “Is that so?”
I nod.
“Does that mean you’ve thought about me since that night too?” he asks.
We’re interrupted by the waitress bringing our drinks. A beer for Jett and a white drink in a martini glass for me.
I look at him in question. “What is this?”
He smiles. “It’s a rum raisin martini. I found the recipe online and asked the bartender if he could make it before you arrived. I showed him the ingredients, and he said he had everything.”
I think I physically feel my ovaries explode. “Wow. I don’t know what to say. That was really thoughtful. I didn’t even know it existed. Thank you.”
His smile only grows bigger, like he’s proud of himself. He’s so damn cute.
“So,” he prods again, “have you thought of me at all?” he asks hopefully.
I take a sip of the most delicious drink in creation, which will now forever be on my drink order list. “We’re doing the honesty thing from now on, right?”
He nods. “We are.”
After a large gulp for some liquid courage, I admit, “Yes. A lot. You weren’t alone in feeling a spark that night.” I reach for his hand. “I felt it too. And I’ve thought of you often. More often than I’d like to admit.”
We stare at each other as something passes between us. It’s electric.
He picks up my hand and kisses it. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
I wordlessly shake my head.
“You’re stunning. Complete and total perfection.” He winks at me with a knowing smirk. “I might need to take a picture of you and use it as my wallpaper.”
“Wait,” I say as a memory from our night together hits me. “Don’t you have a flip phone? How did you manage to get yourself on the app?”
His smile grows. “After you rejected me, I went out and bought my first iPhone. My kids had to help me learn how to use it. It took a lot of time and patience, but I think I get it now.”
“You bought an iPhone just to join the dating app so you could talk to me?”
He nods before looking toward the dance floor and then back at me. “Would you like to dance?”
I scrunch my face. “I don’t actually know how to line dance.”
He smiles. “I know. I was there when you adorably giggled while you put it on your profile, and you told Lloyd. But lucky for you, I do. My mother didn’t have a husband, so she’d make me go with her all the time when I was growing up. I hated it when I was a little boy, but I grew to enjoy it.”
I remember him telling me during one of our late-night chats that his parents divorced when he was a baby.
“Were you ever that little?” I ask, taking in his enormous body. “It’s hard for me to imagine you as a little boy.”
He lets out a laugh. “I was born at twenty-three inches and eleven and a half pounds.”
I audibly gasp. “Oh my god. Your poor mother.”
He chuckles as he stands and grabs my hand. “Come on, angel face. Dance with me.”
That’s the first time he’s called me angel face in person. I’m confident I’ll now be putty in his hands whenever he does so because hearing those soft words uttered by this hard man has got my head spinning and libido on overdrive.
When we approach the dance floor, the band leader looks at Jett, and they seem to exchange some sort of silent acknowledgment. The man cuts the music and brings his mouth into the microphone. “I understand we have a new friend tonight who wants to learn a dance.” He stares right at me.
My eyes widen at a hundred pairs of eyes looking at me as I turn to Jett in time to see him bite back a smile. He leans down and whispers, “It’s your first lesson. Just have fun. It’s all about letting loose and having a good time.”
I squeeze his hand, though I’d rather crawl into his arms and disappear from this entire scene.
The band leader continues, “Tonight we’re going to learn an oldie but a goodie. A bit of a staple in line dancing. It’s called the Footloose. Let’s get lined up properly and show our new friend how it’s done.”
Everyone cheers before they get into rows as if professionally trained. I feel like I’m in one of those cheesy movies where all the kids at the prom have a fully choreographed dance, except I’m the one person at the prom who doesn’t know the routine.
“Alright,” he happily announces, “we’re going to run through the steps and then add the music and have a blast. It’s a simple thirty-two-count routine you repeat over and over with a quarter turn in between each set. Are we ready?”
The crowd excitedly screams that they are. I’m still absorbing the fact that a thirty-two-count routine is considered simple.
“The first eight count is a grapevine to the right and then a grapevine to the left. Ready? Five, six, seven, eight, step right, left behind, step right, left foot stomp. Good. Now step left, right behind, step left, right foot stomp. Make sure when those boots come together, you stomp it out. Don’t forget to clap on each beat of the grapevine. ”
Wholly crap. Everyone is doing it so easily while I stumble through, trying to copy them. I look around and do my best to follow their lead. Okay, this isn’t bad. I can do it. Some side steps. I can handle this.
He repeats it a few times before moving on to the next steps.
“Next, we’re doing a traditional K-step.
Take your right foot and step forward diagonally and then meet it with your left foot.
Take your left foot and step back diagonally and then meet it with your right foot.
Now right foot back diagonally and meet it with your left.
Then forward left, meeting it with your right. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
We all do it a few times while the band leader counts for us before smiling and nodding. “Excellent. Moving right along. Now we add the click-clicks. Simply click your heels together twice.” He shows us while saying, “Out, click, out, click.”
We all do it, and again he praises us. “Perfect. Now we get to the truly fun part.”
Oh shit.
“Right heel stomps forward twice. Heel, heel,” he shows us.
“Then right toe, toe behind you.” Again, he shows us.
“Heel, pop, heel, pop, heel, heel.” He shows us a whole intricate thing I’m confident I’ll never get, though everyone around me seems to do it perfectly, like they’ve been doing it their whole lives.
“Now we take it back and then to the side,” where he touches his right heel with his left hand behind him. “Now turn your body a quarter to the right and hit it with your right hand.” Again, he gives us a demonstration.
“Now we start the grapevine all over. Easy, right?”
Um, no. That whole last bit might as well have been in Chinese.
“Let’s put it all together. Five, six, seven, eight.” He runs through the whole thing at warp speed. I look like a buffoon while Jett looks like he just came off Broadway. For a big guy, he moves shockingly well. His hips even sway with it. Ooh, those hips.
Did it just get hot in here?
Jett stands behind me for the last run-through, his hands on my hips, guiding my movements. It’s intimate, bordering on erotic, and I’d be lying if I said having his big hands on my body wasn’t worth the humiliation I’ll likely suffer. So damn big.
The band leader announces that it’s showtime. Jett wraps his muscular arms around me from behind and kisses the top of my head. With his warm breath on my ear, eliciting shivers from my body, he whispers, “You’ve got this, angel face.”
I can smell just a small hint of his yummy aftershave, triggering a few memories from the night we met. It’s sandalwood, orange, and deeply masculine. He didn’t slather himself in it like so many other men. I find myself hoping some of it is left on my clothing.