Chapter 16 Nice Guys Finish Second #2
“I-I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Oh crap. Now I made him feel bad. “ I just think from the few interactions that we’ve had that you’re probably pretty amazing.”
The look in his eyes was completely sincere and beguiling in the way it ripped my next retort straight from my brain and left me kind of, sort of, entirely desperate to hear more. “Really?”
Peter’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “Definitely. You… you steal the spotlight in any room you’re in. And I know I’m only speaking from experience twice between here and yesterday, but… both times? You were the only thing worth looking at in the room.”
My next breath stuck between my breast bones, making me painfully aware that I wasn’t and couldn’t breathe in the face of Peter’s kind words.
No one had spoken to me like that in years.
Not since Jonah and I were first dating.
Sucking back the air needed, I spoke through a voice both shaken and grateful.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a really long time.”
“I’m sorry it’s been so long since you’ve had anyone see you like you deserve to be seen.”
“It’s okay.” I reeled myself back to a more safe distance, unable to rid the restless feeling settling in my stomach. “That’s why I’m here. New start. New life. New people.”
“ Better people,” Peter pushed. A flash of Gabe winked behind my eyes, but aside from him and a small cluster of others, Peter was right.
“You know,” he continued, and I noticed a nervous twinge now present in the lining of his voice. “I would be happy to-to take you out sometime, if you wanted. To, you know, show you around the city or just… uh, show you how much better ‘better’ can be?”
Oh my God.
Is he asking me out?
I hadn’t been on a first date in over five years. Was this even a date or just a ‘hang out’? Thanks to some of the girls back at my studio in New York, I knew there was a difference between the two nowadays. A hang out was chill. A date was not.
“Sure.” I nodded quickly, and my voice came out a bit squeaky. The nervous energy compiling through my body was malfunctioning all of my most basic instincts. “I haven’t done much exploring of Chicago outside of a five mile radius if I’m being honest.”
“Well,” The cheekiest of grins fixed onto Peter’s mouth as he flashed me the most adorable glance beneath his glasses. “Good thing that when I’m not crunching numbers, I’m a five star tour guide around this city.”
“Accountant by day, tour guide by night.”
“Yeah…” Peter rolled his lips together and I could see laughter trying to break through his silly expression, and eventually, it did. We both laughed and it felt good . As our fit of joy carried on, I couldn’t help but wonder which scenario with Peter I wanted more between the ‘Hang out’ or a date.
Peter was nice. He was funny. He was sweet. He was the perfect distraction from Ethan.
“So, I could give you a call sometime tomorrow and we could pick a day?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Our grins were sappy and aimed right at each other for a few seconds before the silence became a question of why neither of us were speaking. Then, like my brain finally woke up after a nice snooze without my permission, I realized why he was looking at me expectantly.
“Oh! You’d probably need my number for that,” I laughed, kicking myself internally for being so bad at this.
Peter was sweet though, and I didn’t expect him to be anything but. “Kind of,” he joked.
I rattled off my number to him while he punched it into his phone.
I knew it was all in my head, but I felt like the entire bar was watching me lock in my first date in over five years.
It was an odd sensation, setting up a date or not date with a man who wasn’t Jonah, but I knew it was something I needed to get out of the way eventually.
I couldn’t go around sealing myself off from all men save for the super inappropriate crush I had on Ethan. I needed Jonah out of my system. I needed to replace all of his tarnished memories with new ones. Maybe Peter was how I was going to do that.
After the deed was done and Peter had my phone number, he picked up his beer and promised he would call me tomorrow. We parted ways and I watched him walk back to where he was sitting with Ethan.
Ethan.
It was entirely possible that he’d just watched Peter ask me out, and the thought that he had filled my empty stomach with a bundle of twisting nerves.
The way he was staring at me from across the bar all but confirmed he’d seen mine and Peter’s interaction.
What I wasn’t positive of was why, of any emotion, confusion doused his observation of me.
Our connection didn’t last for long as Peter sat back down next to Ethan, and I turned back to work as the two picked up their conversation. Only around fifteen minutes went by before the other of the two men were standing on the other side of the bar waiting for my attention.
“Another one?” I asked Ethan, hoping that his answer was no. The tired lines carved beneath his eyes said that what he needed was sleep, and not another drink.
“No, we’re gonna cash out.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about that. It’s on the house.”
“You sure?”
“Call it payment for the free lessons.”
I expected him to say something more, and when he didn’t, I didn’t know how to react.
Ethan was never without something to say, especially when there was a possible joke to make.
He wasn’t even looking at me, but down at the bar with lips thinned so tightly together that they looked like one lip instead of two.
I tried to catch his eyes with mine, but it didn’t work. The energy between us was off, too.
“Are you okay?”
Finally, Ethan peeled his gaze from the bar up to me and goddammit if he didn’t make me want to forget it all for just one fantastical second.
Just one second to forget who he was, who I was, who we were to each other just to be able to enjoy, for one second, how he was looking at me.
One second to pretend the intensity simmering the blue of his eyes nearly black was for me and that it was okay.
They had that power about them and I learned my lesson yesterday on how long I can stand to have him look at me before it becomes dangerous and I become helpless.
“Yeah.” Ethan pinched his thumbs over his eyes. “Just missing Monica is all.”
While it hurt a part of my heart to hear him say that, it was good for me to hear him say that he missed my sister. I’d need every reality check around him that I could get.
“That’s sweet.”
Ethan bobbed his head a few times, exhaling loudly before asking, “So, you gonna go out with Peter?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Probably.”
Ethan’s head moved up and down again, and once again he gave the bartop more eye-contact than me.
“That’s good. Peter’s a good guy.”
“He seems like it.”
And then silence fell between us. Confusion grew over my mind as I watched Ethan and how his mouth pursed together and his umber eyebrows sunk as he studied the patterns ingrained into the bar.
In his eyes, there was something off and whatever it was looked heavy and stressful.
I felt like I could actually see his thoughts zigzagging across his stare, each one frustrating him more.
I wanted to ask what was wrong, but more than that, I didn’t want to cross anymore lines.
A customer off to the side of Ethan asked for another drink, and I left my spot in front of him to go make it. I had my back turned for only half a minute, but when I spun back around to put the finishing garnishes on the customer’s drink, Ethan was gone.
All I caught was his retreating back as he pushed through the crowd and out the front doors, leaving without so much as a goodbye.
What’s his problem?