Chapter Five
I met Nate back at the table, after he gave it a couple of minutes so no-one would get too suspicious. He had a big-ass shit-eating grin plastered all over his face, and I realized as he joined me that I did too.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” he remarked, glancing around furtively to make sure no-one was looking at us too hard.
“Me neither,” I shook my head, giggling a little as I spoke. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Guess I just bring it out in you, huh?” He cocked an eyebrow in my direction and I shrugged.
“Guess you do.”
Before we could say another word, the waiter appeared next to us.
“Have you guys decided what you want to eat yet?” He asked with a smile, and I blinked up at him for a moment trying to make sense of what he had just said. Somehow, I had forgotten that this was a restaurant and that we would be expected to actually buy something. Or would we? I glanced over at Nate – his fantasy hadn’t involved taking me out for dinner afterwards, and it would be sliding dangerously close to actual date territory. Now that his fantasy was fulfilled at last, wouldn’t he just want to be done with the night?
“No, give us a couple of minutes,” Nate replied, picking up the menu and peering down at it. I did the same.
“Oh, and a couple of glasses of the house white,” he added, and the waiter nodded and scurried away. I knew how he felt. Nate had this way about him, this way of speaking so authoritatively that sent a shiver down my spine no matter what the context was. Nate returned his gaze to me.
“What’s up?” He asked, a furrow appearing in his brow. I realized I was just sitting there, menu in hand, peering at him like I was expecting him to jump in and tell me what to do next. Which, you know, wouldn’t have been unwelcome.
“I just…” I trailed off, searching for the right way to say it. “I didn’t think you actually wanted to take me out to dinner, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not wasting a reservation at this place,” he shot back a playful edge to his voice. “Unless you’ve got somewhere else you need to be?”
“No, I’m good,” I held my hands up. “Ive always wanted to come to this place.”
“Then make the most of it,” he nodded towards my menu. “I’m starving.”
“You did work up quite an appetite,” I giggled, and then lifted my menu high enough that I wouldn’t have to see his reaction. I knew I was acting like a teenager, like a kid, but there was something about being in his presence that just threw me straight into that mindset.
And so we had dinner together. I spent the whole time on edge, as though Patricia was going to leap out from around every corner to remind me that this was a bad idea and that I was tempting fate by letting him get as close as he already had. But fuck it. I was in it now, and I wasn’t about to walk away from dinner at the most exclusive place in the city just because of the company I was keeping.
And it was good company, too. I had spent most of my time with him so far…well, not so much in conversation, at least. But with him sat across the table from me, with nothing but the evening in front of us, I actually found myself…I actually liked him. He was funny, and not in that sharp, angry, sarcastic way that so many guys my age were. He would make these goofy, surreal little jokes now and then that had me exploding with laughter, to the point that we got a few disapproving looks from people sitting around us. We danced around the deeper questions – of where we’d grown up, of our friends, of our families – and instead talked about movies and music and books until I wasn’t sure there was a library in the world we hadn’t exhausted. The food was incredible but I truly barely noticed it. I was too hung up on him, this, how this felt. It was our first date. Our first real date. And I’d already put out.
When it came to a close, after dessert that he insisted on getting, I was so buzzed and excited that I couldn’t imagine just heading back to my place and going to sleep in my bed by myself. I wanted him to offer to take me back to his, to sweep me off my feet and share a cab home. I could imagine his hand on my leg in the back of the car, how good it would feel just casually resting there. As though it belonged. He touched the small of my back as he pulled my chair out so I could get up, and it sent this rush through my body that felt as though it was actively trying to pull me in close to him. I glanced up, but he wasn’t even looking in my direction, peering around the place with his brow a little furrowed like his mind was somewhere else entirely.
“This was really fun,” I murmured, and his head snapped back round in my direction. A smile crept over his face, and his eyes seemed to light up, as though he had forgotten what it was that had been bothering him in the first place.
“Yeah, it was,” he replied, and his eyes softened as he looked at me. I felt my heart pick up the pace in my chest, rattling at double-time as I saw his gaze travel down to my mouth. I knew what he was thinking. The same thing I was. But we had never so much as…not in front of anyone else, at least. We had never let it get that far and there was a reason for that. I stepped away from him. We needed to keep our shit together.
“I should get you a cab,” he nodded, pulling his gaze from mine. Just like that, the moment was gone, and as soon as it vanished I found that I was missing it. I wanted him to want me like that, to want me in a way that gave no damns about anyone else in this room. But I knew that we couldn’t. How would it look for my internship if it came out that I was hooking up with the boss?
We headed outside where it had started to rain slightly; I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing they were his instead. He stood next to me, scanning the street for a car to put me in, and I caught a couple of the women passing by us shoot him looks that made me proud to be seen with him. He had chosen me. Of all the women in this city, I was the one he had taken out, I was the one he had wanted the most.
He stepped forward and waved a cab down, and I felt my heart drop as I realized that I was going to have to go home without him. I couldn’t exactly ask to go back to his place. We had already been on a…would I call this a date? I don’t know if there was any other name for it. I didn’t know if I could think of anything that would sum this up better.
“I had a really good night tonight,” I blurted out, looking up at him, imploring him to look at me with the softness he had shown only a few moments before. I wanted to feel that again, not to guess at what it might have been like to be under his gaze in that way.
“Me too,” he flashed me a smile and I knew at once what he was referencing. My heart sank. No, but tonight had been more than that. Hadn’t it? Or had this just been a chance for him to fulfil a fantasy that he had held on to for so long?
The car pulled over and I opened the door.
“You want me to cover the fare?” He asked, reaching into his wallet.
“No, I think you’ve done quite enough tonight,” I assured him. He leaned on the side of the car, hand planted on the rain-slicked metal. He was looking at me again, and as long as his eyes were on mine, I was paralyzed to the spot. And all at once, I was overcome by this rush and I knew what I had to do and before I could stop myself I was on my tiptoes and pressing my mouth against his in the middle of the street, not caring one little bit for who saw us or what they thought of us.
He didn’t react for a moment, and for a horrible second I was sure that I’d overstepped the line and that he was about to push me away and remind me everything that we had agreed upon when we had first started all this. But he didn’t. After that moment had passed, he slid a hand around my back, drawing me close to him. This kiss wasn’t going anywhere. It was the lean-in to something, the start of our foreplay. It was just a kiss for the sake of a kiss, a kiss to say goodbye after a night that we had spent in each other’s company. A kiss at the end of a date. A kiss.
He pulled back, seeming to regain his composure all at once. My mouth was still parted, his hand still on the small of my back, it felt as though it was burning through my dress and leaving an imprint on my skin for good.
“I should get going,” I muttered, looking away from him. He nodded, clearing his throat as though trying to make like that hadn’t happened.
“Yes, you should,” he replied. His voice sounded strange and stilted, as though he was trying his hardest to swallow something down that he knew shouldn’t have come up in the first place. I ducked into the car, he closed the door behind me, and I stole one last glance up at him as the taxi pulled away. And I felt this tug, deep in my stomach, that told me that I should have stayed behind with him instead.