Chapter 8 – Jacob
BurgerFi turned out to be a very casual burger joint on the North Beach. Kina was already at a table when I arrived, waving to me. I smiled at her when I saw her and walked towards her. She stood up and held out her hand.
I took it. Her hand was soft, just like it had been in her office. She wore a summer dress. It had a large floral print on beige material and it hit her just above the knee. She wore it with a jean jacket and cork wedges.
I loved how her outfit made her look so innocent, when I knew differently. This girl could get down and dirty with me, and I loved it.
She had done up her blonde hair, and it curled over her shoulders, hanging down past her elbows. Everything about her was different in a fantastical way.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said when we sat down.
It sounded as if she was trying on purpose to be professional, so I followed her lead.
“Of course,” I said.
I looked around. The place was very laid back. Waiters carried plates with burgers and fries and beer to the people sitting at the wooden tables.
I appreciated that she’d gone to so much trouble to make it as casual as it was. It was almost as if she understood I didn’t want it to be formal or uptight. That wasn’t my fucking style.
“What’s good here?” I asked, looking at the menu.
She shrugged. “All their burgers are delicious. I love this place.”
She grinned at me. It was a bright smile. I couldn’t help but smile back at her.
We ordered burgers and fries. She ordered wine, I ordered beer. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Her eyes were a light blue, a baby-blue, and when she smiled, she rearranged the smattering of freckles on her cheeks.
I couldn’t think of her as anything other than my PR manager, I reminded myself. Sure, we had had the hottest sex of my life and it was natural for me to fantasize about us doing it again. But this was professional, nothing more.
She was too good for me, anyway. We may have shared a wild night together but our lives were very different. I was a player, and she … well, she took care of her brother, whom I’d heard was slipping.
She wore summer dresses and worked as a PR manager, fixing people’s mistakes and improving their images. People like me, who messed up their reputation to the point of needing a PR manager appointed to help them clean it up. We weren’t the same kind of people.
“So,” she said when our drinks arrived. “How are you enjoying Miami?”
I shrugged. “I thought coming back would be different. It’s not as welcoming as I thought it would be. I was traded to the Sharks due to some of this drama going on. I didn’t expect it to be a picnic, but, it’s even worse than I thought it would be.”
That was the first time I’d confessed that thought to anyone: how out of place I’d been feeling, how difficult everything has been. Sure, I’d said something along those lines to Hanson and Brian, but I wasn’t this open or honest.
Kina nodded slowly, running a finger along her wine glass like she could make it sing the way crystal glasses did. This one wasn’t crystal, of course.
“It’s hard creating an image for yourself when everyone is telling you who you are and who you should be,” she said.
I looked up at her. She said it like she knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling. She glanced at me before turning her eyes to the other diners, as if making eye contact was too intimate.
“I guess you do this a lot,” I said. “With it being your job and all.”
Kina shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t often get a client like you, though.”
It felt like she punched me in the gut. Why would she get clients that were so full of shit, so difficult?
“Clients who are so famous,” she said as if she knew what I was thinking. Maybe it showed on my face. “It’s a privilege for me after how hard I’ve worked.”
When I looked at her again, her face was gentle, her eyes smiling, and the tightness in my chest eased up a little. She wasn’t being rude or judging or condescending. She was being honest.
“It was just all so different before I left,” I said.
I didn’t know why I was telling her everything, but it was easy to talk to her. And she made me feel like she was listening, really listening.
“Everything feels different when you’re just starting out and life is still ahead of you, lying at your feet.”
I nodded. That was what it was.
“I’m worried my career will come to an end, that my image will be the last of what they see of me,” I said, and only once the words left my mouth did I realize it was what I’d been feeling. “I don’t want to be remembered as the guy that got sued and suspended for assault.”
She shook her head. “We’ll take care of that,” she said.
She looked determined, and it was a sexy look on her. Her eyes were serious, her lips pursed lightly together. A breeze that came through the dining area ruffled her curls, and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Her lips were full but not too plump. Perfect. I remembered what it felt like to kiss her. I didn’t kiss women anymore if I could help it. I preferred fucking them without getting intimate in any way that mattered, but I had kissed Kina. In a bar bathroom, no less. I hadn’t felt like this since I’d decided to give up dating and just go for satisfying my carnal needs. She made me feel different… attached. It wasn’t a feeling I liked to give into, but it didn’t seem to want to leave any time soon.
“Tell me about you,” I said. “Your career as a PR manager is really taking off, I gather? I mean, it has to if you got someone like me.”
She chuckled, and it was a beautiful sound. I smiled back at her. I knew I was a cocky son of a bitch. I couldn’t help it.
“You are on a new level for me,” she said. Then she blushed, and it was the cutest thing ever. “Career wise, I mean. I’ve yet to find out if it’s a good or bad thing.”
“Touché,” I said, laughing. “I guess we’re both still wondering about that. I know I’m the most attractive client.”
She hesitated, obviously unsure of what to say. I shook my head before she could answer.
“It wasn’t a question; I was just saying.”
She laughed. “You’re something else, you know that?”
I nodded, glad that the ice was broken and we were moving away from the things that made me feel uncomfortable, like the kind of person she wouldn’t want to be with for good. Of course, it could never get that far.
I didn’t “get with” people like that anymore. I was done with relationships, with commitment. Besides, even if I wasn’t, she was my PR manager, and I was the guy on the team who needed someone to fix his image. She was not someone I should fuck again. We had the one time and that was it.
It would have to be strictly professional now, and that was how I was going to keep it. I was going to behave. Surely, I fucking remembered how to do that?