Chapter 14
Well, that’s dumb. The waiter wasn’t even at our table.
I peeked up from underneath my brows to see if Ethan was looking.
He was perusing his own menu, which made me wonder if this was a new restaurant to him or his first-date go-to.
Surely Ethan dated more than I had. Which wasn’t saying much.
If he’d had even one date in twenty years, then he dated more than me.
And since he’d been married, like, a dozen times, I was gonna guess he’d taken a woman to dinner.
He met my eyes and smiled warmly. I returned the smile quickly, then darted my eyes back to the menu.
The menu should be my focus. But the menu had fancy, tiny lettering, and we were in a dimly lit room.
What I could make out were a bunch of weird sauces or random peppers added to otherwise ordinary food.
“The duck is really good here,” Ethan said. His smile had switched from warm to sympathetic.
“Do I look overwhelmed?”
“A little.” He reached across the table for my hand. “Want me to make some suggestions?”
“You bring all your dates here, don’t you?”
“It’s one of my favorite places.” It was an evasion, but a cute one that brought a slight blush to his cheeks. “I bring clients here, too, for what it’s worth.”
That’s when I remembered that Ethan was a somewhat public figure in the city. At least, he used to be. The Louisiana leading-the-pack lawyerly thing. He’d had billboards and bus signs galore.
I put the menu down and scanned the restaurant.
No one seemed to be looking at him, or us.
The waiter had greeted us with warmth but not familiarity.
My head was getting away from me, filling with thoughts of Ethan here every week, a different girl on his arm, each younger than the last. Or two girls, one on each arm, while he showered cash on an applauding set of tables.
The rising absurdity of my thoughts was, oddly, the very thing that relieved my anxiety. It was such a weird place to go that it grounded me. So what if Ethan had dated before? It’s not like we were in a committed relationship. And his playboy reputation wasn’t a secret.
Knowing more about his past would help. And wasn’t that what dates were all about?
I was being silly. Also, I’m a witch. Why do I always forget that part? I could handle a menu with my eyes closed.
So I closed them and visualized only the best plates on the menu being visible, in a clear font and bright lettering. I channeled my inner Cecelia, tuning my emotions to the options. When I opened my eyes, I had what I’d hoped for. A selection of three entrees. I scanned them and made my choice.
I was exactly zero percent surprised that the waiter stepped up to take our order just as I decided what I wanted. I ordered, asking for a few substitutions because it wasn’t an outrageous thing to want no peppers in your duck sauce, then handed him the menu so I could focus on Ethan.
My date. I was on a date. Woo, boy.
His hand was still outstretched on the table, laying there awkwardly because I hadn’t taken it.
I took my wine, and after a moment he withdrew it.
I hadn’t wanted to hold his hand. Not because I didn’t want to touch him or anything, but because he’d been offering to solve a problem I wanted to solve for myself.
Why did that make me feel so guilty? Like I’d disappointed him or broken some unspoken girl code? We chatted about his family and how his dad was enjoying retirement. It was pleasant and easy, the unease at the start of our date fading the more we spoke.
And yet I barely heard what we said to one another.
Instead, my mind was hyperfixated on that one moment.
Making it bigger in my head than it probably was in reality.
Was he thinking about it? Was Ethan wondering why I hadn’t taken his hand?
Did he have an inner monologue that pinpointed every action in minute detail and told him whether or not he’d done it right?
Probably not. I wanted to be sexist and say it was because he was a man. But I suspected there were plenty of women in the world who didn’t question their choices with the same fervor I did. This was a habit, borne out of years of practice berating myself.
“CC?” Ethan’s warm oak eyes were on me, his brow furrowing. “Where’d you go?”
“I was thinking about Cupid,” I said. And because that wasn’t entirely accurate, I added more. “Well, about myself, really, and how much I have in common with him.”
“Comparing yourself to a god now?” His smile froze on his face, and he winced. “That came out wrong.”
“No, it didn’t.” We paused while the waiter poured wine.
He offered it to Ethan to sample, and Ethan did the swishy-swirly thing, then savored it on his tongue.
At his nod, the waiter filled our glasses, then edged away.
“I was thinking about how easy it is to slip back into old habits. Even troublesome ones, because they feel more natural.”
“Bad habits feel natural?” He took his fork and stirred dressing into a salad I hadn’t noticed them set down. The scent of the bisque I’d ordered momentarily distracted me from my thoughts. I took a minute to savor it.
Holy crap, this was good soup. It was like butter and gold and everything rich and satiny in the world blended into cream. It was ambrosia-esque. I forgot everything else for one blissful moment.
“I wish I’d ordered that.” I looked up to find Ethan had finished his salad and was watching me with a strange combination of amusement and lust. “You make it look orgasmic.”
“I think it might be.” Mouth full, stomach on happy overload, I didn’t have it in me to be embarrassed. “I forgot what we were even talking about.”
“You were telling me about defaulting to bad habits.” The waiter came to clear our plates. Though my soup was gone, I had to resist the urge to bite his hand when he reached for it.
“Technically, I used the word troublesome. But the point stands.” I gestured at his hand. “I went into a sort of mental spiral when you extended your hand. You were offering help, very kindly I might add, but I wanted to figure out the menu on my own.”
“Okay?” Ethan looked at his hand like it had a life of its own. “I understood that. You did the magic thing.”
“The magic thing?”
“Yeah, when you’re channeling your magic, your body does this … thing.” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. A bit exasperated, Ethan sipped his wine. Under the table, his leg began to fidget. If he could have paced the floor of the restaurant, he would have. “You … blur.”
“Actually, I think I know what you mean. Because I’ve seen you shift, and it’s the same.” Well, that was interesting. I had no idea my magic was visible.
“I blur, too?” Ethan looked affronted, as if knowing he was blurry somehow offended his masculine sensibilities.
“I don’t know if that’s the right word,” I said with a laugh. “There’s a moment when you aren’t quite wolf and you aren’t quite human. It’s like you’re in two worlds at once.”
“That’s exactly it.” I had to chuckle at Ethan’s relieved expression. Maybe he was more anxious than he’d let on. Somehow, that made me less nervous, too. “So why was not touching my hand a troublesome habit?”
“It wasn’t the touching or not touching that was troublesome.” Our entrees arrived, and oh, they looked heavenly. Good job, word witch! “It was the mental roller coaster afterward that was troublesome.”
“Ah. Because you went into a spiral about whether or not it offended me, then you got mad at yourself for placing my emotions above your own, and it went off from there?”
I looked at Ethan like he was a creature from another planet. “Are you a witch?”
He roared with laughter, not caring that tables around us glanced over to see what the mayhem was. And, because he didn’t care, it made it easier for me to join in, too. This was … fun. I’d forgotten a date could be fun.
“I’m not a witch.” He spooned some sauce onto his potatoes and grinned. “Four ex-wives, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” I prepared myself for another amazing dish. “Speaking of ex-wives …”
I managed to make it through the rest of the evening without going into truly bizarre headspaces. And I felt like I knew more about Ethan the man, and, surprisingly, that he knew more about Simone the woman. Date goal achieved.
At the end of the night, he walked me to my door, and my stomach twisted itself into a million knots. Two days ago, this was supposed to be the easy part. But now Cupid was “shooting new arrows,” whatever that meant, and there was an odd new chemistry between us as a result.
From that moment in my house six months ago, I’d wondered what it would be like to kiss Ethan. We’d come close more than a few times, but something had always held me back. Or we’d been interrupted.
As I turned to say goodnight, he moved forward with intention.
There was no real fire in his eyes, nothing that spoke of desire, yet he slid one arm around my waist. He pulled me close, making the move so seamless I could tell he’d done it before.
My heart stuttered at the thought, but to my surprise, my fingers linked themselves behind his neck.
Nothing would hold us back now.
My heart pounded heavily, so hard I could feel it against his chest, which he’d pressed close to mine. As he drew me near, the wolf flashed in his eyes. For one moment, he was dark and wild.
His wolf’s eyes met mine, though, and a new feeling rose from deep inside me.
Something heady and overwhelming. And while I couldn’t define the emotion exactly, I knew that if we kissed, there would be no going back.
In the yard below us, a critter skittered across the fence.
The sound was rhythmic and frantic, a song of nighttime in January.
And yet, somehow, it killed the mood. Almost against my own will, I veered to the side, enough that my kiss landed on his cheek, rather than his lips. I lingered, enjoying how close we were. But despite the desire heating me up from the inside, some invisible string pulled me away.
“Thank you for a truly fantastic dinner.” My voice was unsteady, and while I managed a smile, my lips trembled with it. “You’re great, Ethan.”
I slid inside my front door, practically closing it on his face, then pressed my back against it for support. My legs gave way, and I lowered myself to the floor. Tears, sudden and not quite explainable, flooded my eyes and ran freely down my cheeks.
Cecelia warmed the air around me, enveloping me in a breeze like a comforting hug. She jammed tissues into my hand.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “It was more than I expected.”
But I sobbed there for a while. Until my legs were numb and tingly and my butt bone ached.
Long after I’d washed off my makeup and taken off my fancy dress costume, tears still trickled. And as I dragged myself to bed, they wet my pillow until I was sound asleep.