More Awkwardness #2
She flushed a little, turning as pink as the flowers on the floral summer dress she wore.
This dress was better than the cocktail dress, a little less distracting.
A little. It still showed off her lean thighs.
The low neckline still exposed too much of those awesome, levitating breasts, but it was a nice break from the high buttoned shirts and straight cut knee-length skirts.
She also only ever wore black, grey and navy and it was nice seeing those soft pastel colors on her lightly tanned skin for a change.
It was nice that she had her hair down too.
“It wasn’t bad,” she replied. “It’s just not my thing.”
Wow! Jordan Shepard is attempting to sugar coat. “Please, don’t go easy on my account.”
“I hated it,” she admitted immediately. She stopped walking and turned to him, seemingly because she wanted him to know just how unpleasant it had been for her.
“I was so bored, I explored places in my mind I didn’t know existed.
Just so you know, it wasn’t my conscious mind.
I was asleep, even if my eyes were open.
This was me.” She rolled her eyes back like she was semi-drunk, pretending to nod off and get up again.
“Dying…Of…Boredom.” Once would have been enough, but she did it repeatedly.
He was seeing a different side to her, something a little playful, a little silly. It was nice.
He caught her chin when her head dropped for the fifth time and her soft skin on his fingertips was also…
nice. Overall, everything was a little too nice for his liking.
“I get the picture,” he said with a smile, taking a few seconds longer than necessary to move his hand from her face.
“You didn’t like it. If this isn’t your thing, why did you agree to come? ”
“I believe one should always try something at least once. And I have to admit watching scantily dressed people declare their love for each other through dance…with my boss was an all new kind of awkward for me.”
Her honesty was endearing and his smile widened. “The situation was quite displeasing for me too.”
“Displeasing?” she asked as they continued walking down the street. “Yes, I have to agree with you, Mister Evans. Quite displeasing.”
“I have a feeling you’re mocking me again.”
She didn’t respond and that was confirmation enough.
“Well, seeing as though I have subjected you to an evening of torture, you get to choose what we have for dinner.”
She gave him a nod when she made her decision. “Hot dogs.”
Twenty minutes later, Jordan sat down on a bench outside a small café, taking in the late sunset on this beautiful summer evening. Being here with Tyler was a little strange. He’d asked her out again and she thought: Why the hell not?
There was still a part of her that doubted his motives and she’d been hoping to find out what those were tonight, but not one thing had happened to prove he had a hidden agenda. Maybe he was just a nice guy doing a nice thing to say thank-you.
“Of all the restaurants in Seattle,” Tyler said, sitting down beside her, “we choose the one with the worst service. And how is it possible that they don’t own a single table?”
She shook her head with a quick roll of her eyes. To anyone else that might have sounded like a complaint, but she knew it was just a bout of exaggeration. He was such a strange man, so odd it was the tiniest bit intriguing.
Before their dinner last week, she had always thought him to be a boring, predictable guy with schizophrenic tendencies, but now she’d seen a different side to him.
She had always respected him as a businessman and she had respected him as her boss, but after he’d sat across from her at Giovanni’s, untroubled by the mess of a person right in front of him, she had started respecting him as a person.
He wasn’t like other rich people she knew.
There were no classes or different social standings in his eyes and now more than ever she wondered how he had ever lasted three years with Trisha Parker.
The two of them were worlds apart. Trisha was a vain and judgmental socialite and he was so down to earth.
He’d sat across from her the entire evening without the slightest ounce of awkwardness.
He had even eased the tension and made her feel more comfortable.
The joke, however, was completely unexpected and almost surreal.
It was nice to see him that way. Refreshing.
When he laughed, his brown eyes lit up and his nose crinkled in the most adorable way, making him…kinda handsome…borderline attractive and—she would never admit this out loud—unbelievably…sexy. Ugh! Barf!
Her skin actually crawled at the thought.
Tyler Evans and sexy should not be two things she associated together.
Yet at this moment her eyes were strongly disagreeing with her thoughts.
Pale orange shirt with no tie, he looked disgustingly handsome tonight.
And sexy was definitely the word she would associate with his bottom lip.
He handed her a hot dog semi-wrapped in a serviette. “There’s an unhealthy amount of ketchup on these.”
“Thanks.” She tried to take a bite, but he was right. There was so much ketchup that biting into it would cause it to ooze over on either side. Both of them tried different methods. He angled his head, she leaned forward so the sauce would drop on the floor instead of her dress.
“This is incredibly difficult,” he said, licking a dollop of ketchup from the side of his mouth.
“Quite displeasing,” she concurred.
His lips pulled tight, straining as he tried not to laugh with food in his mouth, his nose crinkling in that cute way. She took another bite, but because of aforementioned cuteness, she didn’t time her leaning properly and ketchup dribbled down the front of her dress.
“Great,” she muttered as she swallowed.
He handed her a clean napkin. “Here.”
Her hands were a mess as well and that made it even more of a mission to clean herself up.
“You’ve got some in your hair.”
“Where?” she asked, turning her head from side to side to look for the red stain.
“Wait. No. Stop doing that! You’re getting it all over your face.” He grabbed another napkin. “Wait. Hold still…I got it.” He leaned closer and gently grasped her hair with the napkin to clean it off. “Is this a habit of yours? Getting food all over you?”
“It seems to only happen when you’re around.”
His hand moved up to her face, rubbing the napkin over her cheek. “It’s already drying,” he said, looking equally amused and helpless. “You’re a mess.”
“We should get a mom up in here. Get them to do that spit thing they do.”
She noticed the tiniest flinch on his face and, for a second, he looked a little sad. “Yeah,” he whispered and continued cleaning her up, alternating between her face and scraping off flakes from her hair.
His closeness was a little unsettling. His thigh was brushing against hers and his hand was on her face, still trying to peel off the remnants of sauce. He dropped the napkin and used his thumb to rub off the last few icky drops.
Oh, God. That bottom lip was so close and she knew his cologne would linger in her nostrils even after the night was over.
This is Tyler Evans, she told herself. Stop staring at his lips. Stop sniffing him!
“There,” he said, yet his thumb was still caressing her cheek.
His eyes met hers and it was a stilted, loaded and extremely uncomfortable moment because neither of them said anything.
They just stared at each other, allowing that discomfort to sink through to bone level.
It took a few seconds before he quickly moved his hand away.
It was a bit tense after that, mildly awkward.
She’d just had an almost-kiss moment with her boss.
She didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her, but in a very unexpected and momentary collapse of sanity, she had wanted to kiss him.
They suffered through a few more minutes of weirdness before they unanimously agreed it was time to go home.
He dropped her off at her townhouse and as soon as she walked inside, she marched straight to the bathroom mirror so she could give herself a good talking to.
“Are you kidding me with this shit? You turn into this over a sexy pair a lips and a cute smile.” She shouldn’t have said that to herself, because now she was thinking about exactly that.
She saw her doe-eyed reflection in the mirror and knew it needed to be done.
She slapped herself. Hard. “It’s Tyler, you moron!
You don’t kiss guys who have zero charm.
You don’t kiss guys who think eating veal is wild.
And you sure as fuck don’t kiss guys who use words like displeasing. Now get that shit out of your head!”