Chapter 12
Ian
I kept glancing at my watch. She was late. Really late. Well, not really — not in normal people time. But she was really late in my time. In my time everything was on schedule, and if someone was just minutes late, they might as well have been hours late.
The fact that I was early made the situation even worse. It made it seem like she was even later than she actually was.
The waitress had already started to glance at me with one of those looks. It was the type of look that screamed out just how pathetic I was for still waiting. The type of look that really did pity me. The type of look that seemed to suspect that I had just been stood up.
But had I?
I hadn’t gotten that sort of impression from Kate at all. She had seemed genuinely interested in coming to meet me. So I didn’t really buy the whole, I-got-stood-up scenario. There was definitely something else — something more to the story.
I hoped she was all right.
I sighed as I saw my waitress refill water glasses at the table just a few feet from me. It was probably only a matter of seconds before she made her way back around to my table to ask if I needed anything— just as she had been doing every three minutes or so for the past half hour.
I wanted to slam my head down on the table. Honestly, if it came down to that or more pity stares, I probably would have followed through with the head slamming.
It wasn’t bad enough that I was almost ready to give up on Kate, but I had to be stared at by random strangers in the process?
But just when I was about to reach my hand up to gesture toward the waitress to bring the check, a fiery redhead caught my eye. She was aimed right for me.
Her ankle boots were clanking hard and quickly against the restaurant’s tile floor. The sounds were so loud that I could hear them from across the busy dining area. Her hair bounced like a model’s in a shampoo commercial as she hurried toward me.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she gasped as soon as she was close enough to speak.
I stood for a moment and gestured for her to have a seat. But not without craning my neck to give the waitress a cheeky grin first.
“I was having an argument with my dad,” she explained as she removed her coat and sat down. She twirled her scarf off of her neck. I tried not to imagine the whole process as a striptease—the coat, the scarf. I would’ve given anything to be those clothes, so close and snug against her skin.
“You guys have quite a few doozies every now and then, huh?” I asked as I pulled my napkin off the table and laid it in my lap.
“We do.” She sighed, almost sadly. It looked like she was really upset.
What kind of guy would I have been if I just let that go?
“What was it over? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“My sister.” Her voice was flat. It was like her mind was somewhere else entirely. “It’s always about Claire or my career path. One of the two—sometimes both.”
I shifted back in my seat and watched as her eyes watered with emotion. I wondered if they were tears of anger, or tears of sadness. But it didn't really matter; the point was that she was upset. I hated when women cried. I hated, even more, when I couldn’t do anything about it.
Our date wasn’t exactly starting out as planned. I felt some pressure to cheer her up, to fix her problems so we could move on to the “getting to know each other” stage, which, if I were lucky, would lead toward the “getting to know each other’s bodies” stage. My attraction to Kate was more than physical, but there was still a heavily physical aspect to it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“Our fights just got so much worse after I decided to get my Master’s in Education,” she said, her composure breaking. “That’s what really sealed the deal for him; that was when he knew that I wasn’t coming into the business with him like my brother did.”
“He’ll get over it,” I said as I leaned forward. I wanted her to be positive. I knew what it was like to have a hard-ass for a father. “Tough dads still love their kids. It’s just harder to get through to them. But really, you’re a great person, and he must see that.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said, her voice tight.
“What about when it’s time for you to move to California?” I didn’t like to think about her moving, not just as I was finally getting to know her, but maybe the thought of escape could ease her mood.
“I used to think he’d get over it then because he’d miss me, but now I don’t know.”
“He’s really that stubborn?”
She scoffed. “That’s putting it mildly.”
I laughed. “So why were you fighting about your sister? Claire, was it?”
She smiled and gulped. Not a single tear had fallen from the brims of her eyes. I was honestly proud. I wasn’t even sure I could hold back tears like this girl could. She was a fucking champion if I had ever seen one.
“She skips school, gets bad grades — and it’s all costing money, and it seems to him like the money is being wasted.” She reached out for the water glass on the table. I couldn’t help but be a little mesmerized as she brought it to her lips—those beautiful, beautiful lips…
They were plump, luscious, and begging to be kissed. They puckered against the rim of the glass as she took a sip.
“So it’s on his dime, and he doesn’t want to put out for it anymore?” I asked. The compassionate part of me thought it was a real dick move. Any dad worth a damn would try and understand the problem. But the business side of me — the logical and practical side — understood exactly where he was coming from. Why would you continue to pay for a good education if it wasn’t being utilized? That was throwing money away, and I might not have wanted to know much about business, but I knew that throwing money away wasn’t the wisest thing to do. Lost causes were lost causes, and a good businessperson cut them loose as soon as possible.
But I could only hope that when the time came for me to be a father, I would look past that shitty thinking and hold onto my compassionate side. Sadly, that side was buried probably a lot deeper than I even realized — but I could only hope that I would be able to unearth it when the time came.
“See, that’s the thing,” Kate said. “I pay for the school. He gave up on her going to a good school a long time ago.”
Yeah. Her dad sounded like a world class asshole. What kind of person would be okay with their just-graduated daughter paying a private school tuition for their other daughter? Especially considering the younger daughter was his responsibility until she was out of high school.
“Anyway, let’s not ruin our date,” she said with a forced smile. “My dad is my dad, but he shouldn’t ruin my entire day.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t want her to drop anything she wanted to talk about. I’d just met her a few days ago, but for some reason, I was perfectly fine listening to her talk about anything and everything — I actually wanted to hear whatever she had to say.
“No, I’m completely sure.” She laughed, her mood finally shifting. “Thanks for letting me talk as much as I did about it.”
“No ‘thanks’ needed.” I sat up straighter and grabbed my menu. “I like when you talk; I want to get to know you.”
I couldn’t believe how lame it sounded when I said it out loud. I couldn’t believe how little game I really did have. This wasn’t like me. Something about her flustered me and kept me on edge, and damn it all if it didn’t make me sound like a fool.
“Well, then I guess we’ll just have to talk all about me, then,” she said with a smirk. “And definitely not my dad.”
I couldn’t help but watch as she opened up the menu and began scanning it. The deep green of her eyes could keep me mesmerized for years. If I was being poetic, I might say that they were like a sea I could get lost in. They really were the most beautiful things I had ever seen — along with her beautiful red hair.
I smirked. Green eyes, red hair. She was like a walking Christmas card. I usually hated Christmas colors — but for her, they worked. And on her, the colors looked damn good. Just like everything else on her did.
We talked some more, and our conversation went from the menu to jokes, and then back to the menu. The waitress took our orders, but I barely even paid attention to what I said to her. I didn’t pay attention to what I wanted to order. Not really. I loved the place. I’d memorized the menu backward and forwards. It was a small menu, anyway. But even though I did love their food, I didn’t care about eating.
Not this time—I was too wrapped up in our conversation.
I was learning so much about Kate — her hopes, her dreams, and what she hoped to accomplish in San Diego. I felt so incredibly comfortable with her that I felt like I already knew her. It was crazy, but she made me feel something different, something special.
We chatted and sipped our drinks, and I hardly tasted my beer. At one point, I found silence wafting through the air, but it wasn’t a tense or awkward silence. It was an understood, and almost too comfortable, silence. It was too comfortable considering we had only met recently. Who was ever that comfortable sitting in silence at such an early stage in a relationship or friendship?
In that silence, I cleared my throat. “I think I should admit something.”
I wasn’t exactly sure why I was talking. I wanted to shut myself up because I knew what I wanted to say.
But I couldn’t hold in the words. “The truth is, is that I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”
I hadn’t even finished a single beer yet, but it was still like something had a hold of me. It was like something was making me talk. Kate—the human truth serum.
She smiled, and a small blush formed on her cheeks. She was so fucking adorable and sexy I almost couldn’t stand it.
“I feel like I see you everywhere,” I blurted, as I fingered my water glass. “I hope you don’t think I’m a stalker or anything. I haven’t really been seeing you everywhere; I just think I do.”
Yeah, that was worse than being a stalker — at least to me it was. I was just a pathetic basket case obsessed with a woman I barely knew or had barely even spoken to.
“No,” she said with a laugh. “I get what you mean.”
I sighed in relief.
She continued, “I’ve been seeing you everywhere, too — even the strangest places.”
I smiled. Well, at least she hadn’t been completely scared off by my sudden crazy confession. That was a plus.
At that moment, something shifted. It wasn’t just me trying to lamely impress a woman I didn’t know. It wasn’t just me wondering why the hell I cared so much. It wasn’t anything but me looking at her and her looking at me. It made something click. It was a moment people always talked about — a moment I pretty much thought was bullshit — where I was just captured. It was a feeling I really had never experienced before. I was so there with her. I was so engaged.
I was filled with so much emotion, and it was all so sudden. I really liked this girl. So much that I almost felt like a teenager, all giddy and hopelessly romantic. I didn’t have a clue what was coming over me.
“I think we could have something, as crazy as that sounds,” I said. It really was crazy—we didn’t even know each other’s last names for fuck’s sake! But I didn’t care — all of that would come in time.
I just knew that I had to get to know her, that I would take whatever time and measures necessary to make this work. I would do whatever necessary to ensure her happiness, and I hoped to god that her happiness involved me somehow.
I just wanted to be around her.
I scooted my chair closer to her and reached beneath the table. My hand searched for her knee, and I found it. I gripped it firmly, but gently at the same time, and I couldn’t help but notice how good her warmth felt against the palm of my hand.
It was so much better and grander than anything I had ever imagined. My hand on her knee was real, and not just a construct of my imagination.
She stiffened, and I felt her leg flex just before she shivered. I smiled. It was like a tingle had run down her spine. I knew that was what she was feeling because I had felt the exact same thing when my hand made contact with her leg. Electricity shot through my body.
We had chemistry.
I leaned in, not really sure what had suddenly come over me. She didn’t flinch or move away. Instead, her eyes closed and she leaned in, too. I felt her breath against my chin as we moved closer, inching in for the kiss we both had clearly been waiting for.
But all of a sudden the sound of a woman’s throat clearing came from just over my shoulder, causing us to jolt away from one another. I turned to see the waitress standing there with our food.
Normally, I would have shrugged it off and called the waitress a cock-blocker, but not today. At the moment, that description wouldn’t have been even the slightest bit correct, because she’d blocked something far more intense, far more important than a sexual conquest.
Even though I was really hungry and as much as I did want my food, I wanted to kiss Kate much, much more.