6. Ill Take Your Pickle
CHAPTER 6
I'LL TAKE YOUR PICKLE
COLIN
I ’m almost done with one of the software features Zane contracted me to build, and I’m pretty happy with the result. It needs to go through testing, but I’m looking forward to sending it to him. I take a break to stretch in my chair, feeling a few things pop.
Before her eyes dart away, I catch Joanie staring at where my T-shirt rides up above my jeans. I used to hate my body, used to punish it and try to force it into a certain shape. That was then...now I’m content with how I look, belly and all. So I choose to believe that Joanie’s look means she appreciates what she sees.
She swallows hard and turns back to her laptop, chewing on the cap of her pen with even more vigor.
“You want something that’s not plastic to eat?” I wasn’t planning on asking her to lunch, but Joanie’s lack of filter might be rubbing off on me. I tilt my head toward the front door. “I was thinking of grabbing something at Gordo’s.”
She bites her pen one more time and nods. “Yeah, sure.” She gets up from her chair and does her own stretch, her wavy brown hair bounces around her shoulders as she runs her nails over her scalp and yawns like she’s waking up from a nap.
The walk to Gordo’s is a few blocks, but their carnitas burrito is worth any distance. Joanie and I chat about my work and her book, the conversation easy as always. I was expecting a little awkwardness after Friday and Saturday’s marathon hang-out, but there’s none.
As we grab a couple menus and sit down at a window table, Joanie tilts her head to the side and looks at me like she’s puzzling me out. I’ve seen the look before, but at this tiny little table, she gets an up close view.
Before our food arrives, she scoots her chair in and her knee brushes mine. I don’t move and neither does she. The warmth of her leg pressed against mine has an ache spreading from where we touch, to my cock, up through my chest. I can feel my ears turning red.
“What’s up?” I ask her. Totally casual, but I can feel the cracks in my mask spreading.
“You’ve always looked so familiar to me. And in this light, even more so.” She nods at the window where bright midday sun streams in. The morning fog burned off, leaving Wavecrest bathed in bright sunlight. I glance out the window as if to give the strong sunlight a piece of my mind.
“There! That profile...I know I’ve seen it before. I’d say I never forget a face, but I have a terrible memory.” Thank goodness for small mercies .
I shrug. “I have one of those faces.”
“Bullshit, that’s like saying Aretha had one of those voices.” Now the tips of my ears are on fire. I dip my head and pay very close attention to the glass of water in front of me. It has the added benefit of letting my hair swing forward to partially hide my face.
“So how’d you get into writing?” It’s the clumsiest change of subject but I’m desperate. My heart is hammering in my chest, partly from the fear that Joanie will finally realize where she knows me from, and partly from how open she is about the way she sees me.
“Wow, you’re worse than Meredith when it comes to changing the subject. It’s adorable.” She waves away the thought with her hand. “I worked a series of jobs I hated, and reading has always been my favorite way of escaping daily life. Much to my parents’ dismay, I was a creative writing minor in college, so in my spare time I started writing romance. I didn’t think it’d go anywhere, but my first book took off beyond my wildest expectations. I got lucky.”
“Lucky might’ve been part of it, but you’re really fucking talented.”
“You weren’t bullshitting when you said you read one of my books?” She gapes at me like the idea of me reading her writing is beyond the realm of possibility.
I shrug and take a sip of my water. It’s impossible to hide my smile though. “I like the way your voice comes through.”
She plops her elbows on the table, her leg jolts against mine, and her lips are right there. “Holy shit, I can’t believe you’ve read something I’ve written. What was your favorite part? No, wait, don’t tell me. What was your least favorite part? Never mind.” She buries her face in her hands. “I can’t believe it.” She’s spiraling, and it’s adorable.
I put my hand on her wrist and tug a little. “Hey. Thousands of people have read your books. What’s the big deal if me, just one more random person, has read them too?”
“Them? As in you’ve read multiple?” She’s having a Joanie-level freak out. It’s a ride, and I don’t want it to end.
I lean in and lower my voice, accepting that the smell of her hair will do things to me that make me grateful I’m sitting down. “Hey, I love your books. They’re very you. I read all sorts of genres, including romance. No big deal, okay?”
She nods her head and smooths her napkin over her lap. “Yep. Okay. Totally fine. Glad you enjoyed them.” Her face is the color of the salsa the server placed down in the middle of the table.
“Here, have some chips. They’re known to cure unwarranted embarrassment.” I scoot the basket of warm tortilla chips across the table.
She giggles, shakes her head, and straightens her shoulders, like she’s decided to shed whatever awkwardness she was feeling.
Our food arrives, and we dig in. We end up talking about the office anniversary party coming up in a few weeks. Stuart managed to secure a small ballroom at the local resort, and I’m going to have to go shopping for fancy clothes. Something tells me showing up in a flannel and jeans won’t cut it.
We spend a little time talking about what she wants to do with her website and how I can help. Hopefully by this evening her website headaches will be over—it’s a simple fix for me but she looks at me like I’ll be rescuing puppies from a burning building. I could get used to Joanie looking at me that way. Or any way, really.
As always, conversation flows easily, but I’m constantly aware of how close we are, how I can see the shades of brown and gold in her eyes and breathe in every note of what makes Joanie smell like my deepest fantasy.
Being this close to her, eating lunch like we’re nothing more than friends when I can imagine so much more, it’s the sweetest torture. The best kind. The kind that makes me want to show her all my hidden pieces. But there’s a difference between wanting to and being brave enough to do it.
That afternoon I migrate Joanie’s website over to a new service, one that hopefully won’t cause her any more headaches. I forward her the confirmation email and get up to stretch my legs. There’s a chocolate protein bar in an upper kitchen cabinet calling my name.
Before I can get more than a couple steps, Joanie’s out of her seat, around the desk and flinging her arms around me. Her warmth surrounds me as she presses her softness to me, and I’m failing at keeping my body from responding. A feeling of yes, this burrows deep into my chest.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She squeezes me tighter with each one. Carla, sitting across the desk from me mouths you’re so fucked and laughs to herself. She’s not wrong.
Joanie and I spend the next few weeks having lunch or taking breaks together. Nothing planned, just a raise of the eyebrow or a tilt of the head and we end up grabbing coffee in the kitchen or lunch at one of the restaurants downtown.
I feel myself letting go of the tightly held reins of control, allowing myself to believe that my past won’t matter to Joanie. I tell myself that all that matters for this friendship to thrive is the here and now. She hasn’t mentioned that I look familiar again, and maybe that’s why I stop ducking behind my hair and dropping my gaze when she looks at me.
Or I’m a man who’s falling ass over teakettle for Joanie, even though there’s no way she’d go for a guy who’s more than a decade older and looks nothing like those romance heroes she writes.
I’ve been in a few long-term relationships, but nothing that felt so...easy. Every lunch, every cup of coffee, I learn something new about her.
She hates tomatoes unless they’re diced up in salsa. If she wasn’t writing romance, she’d write mystery. No, her parents have not read her books, but her aunt has and has been dropping copies in her neighborhood Little Free Library. And Joanie’s landlord won’t allow pets, otherwise she’d have at least five cats.
Over the course of a dozen lunches and coffee breaks, and the occasional group get-together at Foggy’s, I’ve learned that she’s perfectly and uniquely Joanie.
On a lazy Saturday, I ran into her sitting on the beach, staring out at the ocean, and doodling in the sand with a stick. Her notebook was perched unopened on her knee. We sat and talked until the sun went down, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The way the wind caught her hair and the sun kissed her face the way I wanted to. That’s when I knew I wanted her to be more than a friend.
She’s messy and funny and unfiltered. Sometimes the most random thoughts come out of her mouth, and I can’t imagine her any other way. Her controlled chaos brings a spark to my life that I didn’t realize was missing.
My dick has gotten so frustrated at being uselessly hard that I think it’s about to go on strike, but that’s nothing compared to how every waking moment is taken up with thoughts of her. Thank the paycheck gods that I can still do my work without fully focusing on it.
Every time she trades me her tomato slice for my pickles. Every time she throws her head back with a laugh, every time her hair catches in her lip gloss, or she covers her face with her hands because she’s just said something that mortifies her, I slip a little further. I’m a man clinging to the edge of a cliff by the tips of my fingers. One more brush of her pinky, one more slightly too long glance, and I’ll fall to the jagged rocks below.
But on the outside, under my long hair and thick beard, I’m still just Colin. It’s physically painful to maintain my cool, but I do it. Because this budding friendship with Joanie sustains me. But the temptation for her to know me...all of me...is becoming impossible to ignore.