Eleven
Evan's arm wrapped around Dana's waist. They walked together; considering their height difference, it ought to have been a little bit of an ordeal to keep from tangling each other up. She must have been used to it, though. Perhaps because of how often she dealt with kids, he thought.
"So when do you work?"
"I don't," she told him.
"Then what are we going to do?"
"I don't know, cowboy. Why don't you tell me?"
"'Cowboy'?"
Dana looked up at him and winked. "You know. Cowboy."
He gave her a dubious look and they kept walking.
"What do you usually do on your days off?"
"Usually I go to Universal Orlando," she said. "And Disney World. And oh, uh... Paris. I think most days off I go to Paris."
"And you wanted to give it a shot?"
"You know, it just sucks having to break from routine."
"Of course," Evan agreed. "Breaking from routine, right."
It was his turn to wink this time. Dana smiled, tight-lipped. Like she was daring him to call her on it. He wasn't going to, though, and both of them knew it. So instead he smiled down at her.
"You're very happy with yourself, aren't you?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
"I can't do Paris. It's not in the budget until next month. After all, I spent it all on the Maserati."
She nodded. He drove a nice car, but a Maserati it wasn't. "Of course. Next month, then. But I'm holding you to that, because I'm not here to slum with some kind of poor person, you know. I've got an image to maintain."
Evan smiled.
She wheeled on him. "Alright, I've got an idea."
"What's that?"
Her hair was in her face. She wasn't saying anything, preferring to build the tension. Her mouth opened to speak just as his finger started to catch the hair. He pushed it gently behind her ear. Her mouth shut again.
"What?"
"What was that?"
"You had a hair in your face," Evan said.
"It was very…"
He looked at her, waiting for the next surprise in a long series of surprises. Most women wouldn't have minded. He honestly hadn't even considered the possibility that she might be upset by it. Finally he had waited long enough. "What?"
"Sweet," she growled. Like she was pissed that he'd made her say it. He liked that reaction, somehow.
"I'm sorry for being sweet. I'll never do it again."
"See to it you don't."
"So what was your idea?"
"What?" She looked genuinely surprised by the question. A moment's silence hung in the air between them. Then her eyes lit up. "Oh, right. Idea. Okay. No, never mind. It's not important."
"What?"
"You probably wouldn't be interested."
"You don't know what I wouldn't be interested in," Evan said. She might be right. He just knew better than to let her know that.
"Well, I was just thinking, you know?"
"Thinking about what?"
"It's been a while since I've been to a museum."
"Okay. You have one in mind?"
As it turned out, she did. So he pulled out his phone, and forty minutes later, he'd paid too much for parking in the city. It was something that he was loathe to do, but there was no better option. She stood by his side, and a hundred cars whizzed by a second. There was a traffic light, but in what felt like five minutes it had shown no sign of changing, even after they'd pressed the button three times now.
The light changed. He started to go. He was almost startled when he felt something in his hand. Almost. Not startled enough to change anything. Her fingers interlaced with his. They were soft. Cool, but not clammy.
He almost smiled. Then a stiff wind caught him in the face, and he adjusted his balance and they kept moving. There was nothing else to be done. Then they went inside, through the large glass doors, and they walked up to the counter, and eventually he paid more money than he wanted to pay, and decidedly less than it probably should have cost for an afternoon's entertainment.
He almost forgot how much he hated museums. Company, he thought, seems to make all the difference. Regardless of the reasons that he'd gotten into this mess, she appeared to be the kind of company that he wanted to have with him.
Evan tried to take some comfort in that, because no matter how many times he told himself that it was all going to work out, it still felt like something was about to go wrong. Eventually, maybe, if he was lucky, he'd figure out what it was. Or he wouldn't, which might actually be worse.