Zelda
“You look great,” Sawyer says, the dancing flames from the candles in the center of the table casting a glow on his face.
He’s sitting, his back straight, in the seat across from me at our table for two at the Heights, a restaurant far enough into the city to make it trendy and fancy enough for me to feel totally buzzed.
It’s been a long time since I went out to a place like this, and judging by the way Sawyer keeps scanning the room, the same is true for him.
I want him to look at me, to keep talking to me. I want to know everything about him.
I had a dream about him last night. He was tapping softly at the door to my basement apartment. Even though the guy is staying at his aunt’s house not even two hundred feet away from where I live, he hasn’t made an appearance at my place yet. Only the library. It makes me blush to think about it.
It’s probably a good thing. My parents wouldn’t appreciate having some strange man creeping through the yard in the middle of the night. That’s if they happened to see him, and if they did, that’s not a conversation I want to have.
He’s wearing a pressed cornflower blue shirt tonight, and a pair of navy dress slacks that look brand new.
When I saw him standing in the restaurant lobby, my heart skipped a beat.
I’d bet a hundred dollars that he took a trip to the mall all the way over on the other side of Greenville, and there’s no way he would do that for anything but this date.
He’s not a going-to-the-mall kind of guy, and I’m not sure he’s even a dress-up kind of guy.
I’m sitting across from him in something silky and flattering, and all I can think about is how ridiculously excited I am to be here. I saw him yesterday, but it feels like I’ve been waiting a lifetime.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.” The blue of his shirt sharpens the color of his eyes.
A flash of jealousy rushes through my gut before I can stop it.
I’m picturing a sales lady holding it up to his face to test the color, flirting with him in the store.
It’s ridiculous, and I shove it down deep as soon as I can.
I have to say something to get us on track, otherwise I might explode from the jittery tension building between us. “Do you think we should text? It might be easier to talk that way.”
He laughs out loud, then picks up his wine glass and takes a sip. “No. I want to look at your face. It’s a pretty one.”
I pretend to fluff up my hair, drawing another smile out of him. There’s some tension framing his eyes that I can’t place. “How’s everything going at your aunt’s house?”
“Fine. She’s been keeping me busy with some repair jobs she’s been putting off getting done, packing up things she’s been wanting to get rid of, that kind of thing.” The image of Sawyer working shirtless in her yard sends a jolt of pleasure straight down between my legs.
“Have you—have you gone to see your dad?”
The few details I’ve been able to get out of him are that his dad has cancer and he’s not in a hurry to visit. It seems like a contradiction to me, but I don’t know the whole story. There’s more to it.
A darkness clouds his eyes and disappears, but he covers it up by taking another sip of wine. “No, I haven’t.” He sets the glass down carefully on the table. “Want to know a secret?”
My heart speeds up a little, and I lean forward a couple of inches, aware that the movement puts more of my breasts on display. “Yes.”
“I knew you would. Okay, here it is.” Sawyer takes a deep breath. “I hate red wine.”
I catch my laugh in the palm of my hand, then look back into his blue eyes. “Why did you let them serve you red wine then?”
He shrugs a little. “This place is fancy as hell. I thought the wine might be…different.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“I think you have to. I’ve told you one.”
“All red wine tastes the same to me. And none of it tastes as good as dessert wine.” I hold up my glass, which is still half full of the sweet moscato I ordered as soon as we sat down.
Sawyer’s eyes sparkle. “I’ll remember that.”
“For what, the next time we’re out on a fancy date?” Saying the words makes heat rise to my cheeks.
“Maybe someday I’ll want to bring you a bottle of wine.”
“I hope you bring me more than a bottle of wine.”
“More than a bottle of wine? What more could you possibly want?” Sawyer’s voice has dropped an octave, and his arms flex inside the sleeves of his shirt.
This is how it happens. The chatty conversation turns on a dime, and suddenly we’re talking about something else, or he’s speaking in a tone that makes me want his hands all over me, the rest of the restaurant be damned.
“I don’t know.” My mind races through the possibilities. “What more do you have to offer?”
“You think all I have to offer you is a bottle of wine?” His smile is confident and sultry, and the glow of the candlelight catches his blue eyes catch and turns the color into something deeper, warmer.
“No. I think you probably have…a more well-rounded package.”
“Yeah.” He nods, and his eyes burn through me. “Yeah. Like, with chocolates. And flowers.”
“And a room…a private room, where we could be…”
“Naked?” He smiles while he says it, but I know he’s not joking. I’m not joking. At some point, I stopped joking, and I’m not even sure when it was.
“I was going to say alone.”
“It’s best to be alone if you’re going to be naked.”
I’m consumed with an image of his magnificently muscled body finally free from all the clothes he’s wearing, and I open my mouth to say something about leaving right now.
“More bread?”
The witty sentence on my lips pops like a balloon. The waiter is hovering right at my elbow offering us a new basket of bread. It is really good bread, but…
“Thanks.” One word out of Sawyer’s mouth, and the waiter drops the basket on the table and retreats.