Chapter 5: The Dinner Meeting
Maxine Cousins was ravishing in red. Ev waited impatiently for her to come back from wherever she had run away to, needing to see her again in the sexy dress that hugged her voluptuous frame and invited him to take liberties with his eyes. When she walked back into the room, some of the air left it, replaced by her essence. He inhaled to calm his body, which was taking notice in a major way. He wasn’t about to pop a boner in front of a woman who a week ago had called him an asshole in a store because he had bumped into her accidentally. But he couldn’t deny that he was very interested in her. And his body was all on board with that interest.
“You look lovely,” he said, using his words to convey his admiration and nothing more.
What he really wanted to say was much, much dirtier. He wanted to tell her that she looked smoking hot, and that he wanted to lay her down and fuck the hell out of her. But he was more than that man, no matter how often he had acted like he wasn’t in the past year. And no matter how much the sentiments were still true. Because he was more than his gonads. And he wanted to treat this woman like more than a hole to ease his hard dick. For the first time since Dani’s death, he wanted to treat a woman like a person, like someone he could be himself with, like someone who mattered. The feeling was unexpected, because he wasn’t looking to fall in love. He was never walking that road again. One loss was more than enough for him.
But Maxine was stirring him up, stoking the fires he had banked three years ago, sharpening the needs he had been unable to meet and intensifying the thirst for something more than he had been unable to quench with his casual hookups. And when she smiled, those dimples begged him to send his tongue in to explore them, and then to slide over to capture these rosy lips. He wanted her with an ache so sharp it stunned him. He hadn’t felt this instantly or this deeply attracted to any woman since Dani. Sure, he’d been horny, but never more than that. With this woman, though, he was not only turned the hell on, but he was interested, and fascinated, and overwhelmed. He wanted to talk to her about her job, about why she’d been so mad last Friday night, about what she did when she wasn’t working. He wanted to hear her laugh again, and listen to her voice.
He was infatuated and he freely admitted it. But that was as far as he was prepared to go. He would cultivate a friendship with her, show her a good time, and enjoy being with a woman who interested him on more than a sexual level. He could suppress the horndog reactions he was having to her. He was a grown man. How hard could it be?
“Thank you. You look pretty good, yourself,” she said huskily, and he clenched his fists to stop himself from reaching for her.
Instead, he opened the door and let her pass through before closing it behind him. “Does it lock on its own?” he asked.
When she shook her head, he extended his hand for the key and locked the door when she gave it to him. Pocketing it, he walked her down to his car, settled her against the leather seat, and walked around the hood, willing his body to calm the hell down. He was able to get into the driver’s seat without too much discomfort, and he was fine until she said,
“Yum! I love this car. It’s so sexy!”
Shit! Hard-on back on. Ev felt like an out-of-control jock at a frat party. This had to stop. He tightened his fingers on the steering wheel and cleared his throat.
“You like fast cars?” Maybe he could steer the conversation on to less dangerous tracks to keep his thoughts from his need to pull over and kiss the stuffing out of her.
“I like pretty cars,” she replied, qualifying her statement. “And this is a pretty car.”
“Thank you. I kinda like it myself.”
She didn’t seem interested in what kind of car it was, but he needed to bring his body and his thoughts back under control, so he said,
“It’s a Benz S-class coupe,” he told her, though he was fairly certain she had no idea what that meant. “I have a Jaguar F-type coupe as well as a Range Rover. I like pretty cars, too.”
He felt the heat of her gaze when she turned to look at him. “Are you a speed demon as well as a pretty-car aficionado?”
“I like to rev things up when the mood strikes me, yes.”
God help him! That sounded like a come-on, and he was really doing his best not to come on to her, not to make a pass at her, not to flirt with her. He hurried to add more, to remove the hint of anything more personal from the words.
“I go racing with my buddies once or twice a year, to scratch the itch. It’s on a race track which we all chip in to reserve, and we make a day of it.”
She hummed and his skin tingled. “Sounds interesting. Tell me more.”
He glanced over to see if she was being sarcastic, but it was clear she was really interested. He reined in his shock and answered her request.
“One of my buddies is a race car driver, and the other three are in business, like I am. We rarely have time to see each other, so we make time at least once a year, when Jim, the driver, is freest. We go out with our families, race each other and anyone else who wants to try, have a barbecue lunch, go out to the local diner for dinner, and then go home. All my friends are married, so they bring their wives, and a few of us have kids as well. We bring the kids and hire a couple of nannies for the day to watch them and entertain them. We rent playground paraphernalia for them, and there’s music and dancing. It’s a big deal. Almost like Christmas or the Fourth of July.”
“You’ve been friends with these men for a long time, I guess.”
“Since high school, yeah. We were all on the same sports teams, and went to the same colleges. We made a pact that we’d all become successful entrepreneurs and strike it rich together.”
Max laughed and Ev’s skin caught on fire. He inhaled slowly to cool the fever. “So why did one of them break the pact?”
“You mean Jim? He owned his own chain of auto dealerships and garages for exotic foreign cars and motorbikes, catering to the rich and famous, for years before he gave it all up to drive one.”
“Why would he do that?” She sounded puzzled, as almost everyone who was told the story did when they heard it the first time. “Wasn't his wife kind of upset with him for throwing away his life’s work?”
This time Ev turned his head to look at her for a long moment. She couldn’t be for real. None of the few other women he had told this story to had ever seen Jim’s sacrifice as anything but a loss of income for his poor wife. None of them had thought that what he did, selling and fixing exotic motor vehicles, was a ‘life’s work’. They had all looked down their noses at him, and had seemed to see him as some kind of glorified grease monkey, instead of a shrewd and highly successful entrepreneur.
“He was going through a bitter divorce at the time,” he told her. “And his wife was looking to milk him for every penny she could get for as long as he was raking in the dough. So he quietly sold most of his shares to his business partners, gave her half the proceeds from the sale, with the understanding that she made no further financial claim on him, and then decided he needed a break from running the business.”
“So, he’s not as wealthy as you lot any more, huh? I guess that makes him less ‘marketable’ for any future woman looking to put her hooks into him for his money.”
Ev laughed out loud. “You’re something else, you know that?’ he said, shaking his head in wonderment. “I take it you aren’t interested in what a man can give you financially?”
“You take it right,” she said decisively. “I have a job, and I like my job. I’ll make my own money, thank you very much. I don’t need a man to give me anything.”
Ev listened to the feisty tone in which she made her declaration of independence and his heart swelled. She didn’t care that he was filthy rich. She wouldn’t want his money if they got together. Which begged the question…
“So, if a man’s wealth doesn’t interest you, what does? What would make you give him a second look, or a chance with you?”
She thought about that as they drove along, and he let her think. He really did want to know the answer to his questions, but he also needed more time to settle his control around him again. Dinner was going to be at the restaurant in the Ritz Hotel, and they’d be there in ten more minutes or so. He could wait to hear what she had to say until they had a drink in hand, if she needed that long to answer him.
“That’s a really hard question to answer,” she said eventually. “There’s so much, and yet it all amounts to so little.”
“Ah, an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, eh?” he chuckled. “Well, take your time. We have a whole meal to enjoy while you figure out a way to explain it to me.”
Handing the keys of the car over to the valet, he escorted her into the swanky restaurant.
“Good evening, sir, madam! Table for two?”
The hostess was a cheerful young woman with a pretty smile and creamy skin. She couldn’t be more than twenty-one if she was that old. On any other night, Ev might have returned her smile a little more openly, but tonight he had no interest in anyone but the woman on his arm.
“Yes, thank you. In a quieter corner, if you can swing that as well.”
He wanted there to be as few distractions as possible for this date, which he had begun to hope would be the first of many with Maxine. When the young woman returned, he followed her to a quiet corner booth next to a window overlooking the parking lot at the back and the road beyond. He helped her into her seat and then slid around to sit in front of her. She had the menu in her hand, but she was staring at him. He held her gaze, noting for the first time how brown her eyes were.
“What?” he asked when she kept staring. “Do I have lint on my jacket or something?”
She chuckled quietly, her cheeks rising like the sun. “No, you’re perfect.”
She blushed and he knew why. And he wished he was what she thought, but he knew, even better than she might, just how low he had sunk in the past year. He was far from perfect, but he liked that he appeared to be. He would start small and grow into something approaching perfection.
“I’d love to accept the accolades,” he said, “but I’m just a regular guy making his way in the world.”
She chuckled again, only this time it was a sardonic sound. “I think you must be the only person in the world to think you’re a ‘regular guy’,” she said. “To the rest of us, you exist in some kind of stratosphere that’s inaccessible to us truly regular folk. And that, right there, is something I admire in a man…a total lack of conceit.”
Ev’s chest tightened at the compliment. It was unexpected and new. He had been told many flattering things about himself, but never that he wasn’t conceited.
“Thank you. Everyone has something he or she is good at. I’m good at entertainment and communications and you’re good at nurturing and fundraising. And Jim is good at selling and racing cars. It is what it is. I’m sure some day, when he’s a little older, and he and his new wife start a family, he’ll rethink his decision to be a race car driver. But in the meantime, he’s happy, she’s happy with him, and all’s right in their world.”
The server arrived just then to take their drink order. Maxine ordered a Shirley Temple, which amused Ev. He ordered a gin and tonic.
“I know you think my drink order is childish,” she said, eyeing him. Apparently he hadn’t hidden his amusement well enough, or else she was very intuitive. “I don’t usually drink when I go out, except for occasions like last night.”
He sipped the water that the server had placed in the glass in front of him. “And why is that?” he wanted to know.
“I guess it’s about control,” she said. “At formal functions like last night’s event, I know I won’t have time to drink more than a glass of something alcoholic. There’s just too much to do, too many people to speak to, and water is better for keeping a dry throat moistened.” She sipped from her glass as she spoke, then continued. “An evening out in a more informal setting like this is a place where I’m likely to be too relaxed, and I am a very happy, loosey-goosey drunk. So I prefer to play it safe.”
Ev let the smile fighting to escape free and clasped his hands in front of him on the table. “Loosey-goosey, eh? How loose are we talking? Badmouthing your boss? Singing love songs at the top of your lungs? Dancing on the tables? Proposing an elopement?”
Her laughter tickled him. It was merry and relaxed and wholesome and real. “Nothing like that at all,” she said. “I just get a little bit too…personal.”
He watched the blush stain her cheeks, and when she lowered her eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching across to chuck her under the chin until she looked him in the eye.
“Personal sounds nice. Sweet. Why would you not wish to be personal on a dinner date?”
She held his gaze for a moment, though her color remained high. “There’s personal,” she said with meaning, “and then there’s personal. Mine is the advanced or perhaps I should say enhanced kind.” She pulled away from his fingers and looked out the window.
The server returned with their drinks, and Ev asked for a few extra minutes to decide on what to order. When the young man stepped away, he said,
“I’m a mean drunk, but not in a fight-with-anything-that-moves way. More in a sarcastic, say-what-I’m-really-thinking way.”
“And that’s different from you sober how?” she retorted in a flash.
Ev could see the minute she realized what she’d said, and it reminded him of how he had called her a shrew and a fish wife the first time they met. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to apologize. He stopped her before she got a word out.
“I get a hundred times more plain spoken,” he said. “Speaking from the heart is overrated when you’re drunk.” He saw the server coming their way and added, “We can get back to this, if you like, after we decide what we want to eat.”
Eventually they settled on comfort food from the Italian choices and then Ev asked her how she had ended up at Hope For All. Because he really didn’t want to remind either of them of their first meeting, or the unfortunate words that had passed between them.
“Oh, that’s an easy story,” she said, sipping her drink. “I was working as a social worker in the hospital, seeing people with all sorts of needs as part of my daily schedule. There was very little I could do for them once they left the hospital, so when I saw the job posting, I crossed my fingers and applied. I had the academic qualifications and the work experience. I figured two out of three ain’t bad.”
She smiled as she recalled the events leading up to her being hired. “Someone from the board came to see me lead a seminar at the hospital for patients who were going to need services long term. I was evaluated on that. Another one invited me on a field trip with her to a halfway house for newly released young offenders. We spent the morning working with the teens there, and admitting two new ones. I was also evaluated there. And then there was the actual interview, in which I was asked to say how I planned to move the organization forward especially in these tight fiscal times.”
She chuckled, looking up at him for a moment before going back to studying the cutlery. “I think I might have won them over when I said I planned to make this organization stand by its word to protect those who cannot defend themselves, even if I had to empty the board members’ bank accounts to do it. They all laughed, because they thought I was kidding. But I was dead serious.”
This time when she looked at him, she held his gaze. “What good is your money if you don’t use it to help other people who need it more than you do?”
Ev desperately wanted to kiss her by that point. He settled for touching the hand she had wrapped around her glass with an unsteady finger.
“Sometimes the ‘haves’ need to be nudged.”
“Yes,” she agreed, smiling at him, “sometimes they do.”
Their food was delivered to the table, and they dug in, not talking much. Ev didn’t mind. He had heard a lot from Maxine, and he had a great deal to think about. She was a passionate woman when it came to her job and her dreams for it. She also had a sense of humor and was honest to a fault, which he found to be immensely alluring. He kept taking sneak peeks at her as she ate, swallowing moans each time she licked her lips, dampening the desire to have those lips wrapped around him instead of the fork.
“So, tell me about you,” she said. “I only know what Google shares from the tabloids and other press. You’re a media mogul…how much of that is real?”
She had just finished her main course and was sipping the second glass of Shirley Temple as she spoke. She sat back and watched him as he tried to decide on a way to answer her honestly but without conceit.
“I've always been interested in how we entertain ourselves,” he said. “As a kid, I was into the video games like all my friends, but I also loved television and books. And when tablets and cell phones became a thing, I saw how great a potential existed for people to be constantly entertained in whichever way pleased them. I made my first million backing a friend — one of the guys I race with — on his chat site project. It’s for nerds and geeks…people who don’t necessarily feel comfortable in the more ‘regular’ chatrooms. But it also doubles as a kind of dating site, except you’re not required to add your name to that part if that’s not what you want.”
“I suppose I can see a poet who can’t find a date joining that chat site,” she said with a quirk to her lips.
“Don’t knock it,” he warned her. “For some folks, that’s the closest they’ll ever come to having normal relationships with other people. Anyway, I added to my portfolio…a new game that he’d developed, and then I branched out. I wanted to add performers to my group, and I started small. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the band Silent Thunder, but I partnered with them to produce a studio album, then found them a manager to push them onto the big stages as the opening act for some rising talent and established acts. They’re still making me money five years later, except now they’re the main event. I expanded that section of my organization into a thriving business on its own, and handed the gaming section over to my friend. We’re partners in EM Media.”
“You made him an equal partner?” She sounded scandalized and disbelieving.
He chuckled, sipping his drink before answering. “No, not an equal partner. But he’s as happy with his share as a pig in mud.”
Her grin made him wish he could reach across the table, pull her in, and kiss it off her face. He blinked to clear the image from his mind. More work talk would keep him focused on being good.
“I got interested in radio and podcasts after that, and have been expanding the company’s focus there as well. And last but not least I’ve opened a small publishing house for independent authors. It’s more of an umbrella organization which allows the authors full autonomy in terms of their profit margins. They get to use my publishing company’s name, we provide them with editors and sales reps if they wish, we do the designs, promotions, whichever of our full array of services they choose to use. Each author’s contract is tailored to suit his or her needs. We make a lot of money off them, even the ones who use the fewest of our services. It’s a win-win situation for both of us.”
Maxine’s eyes were sparkling as Ev spoke, and it had pulled much more out of him than he might normally have chosen to share. She was an involved listener, which made speaking about himself a less self-conscious thing.
“Wow! That all sounds quite fascinating. And you seem to be doing what you’re passionate about as well. I can tell you love what you do.”
Ev smiled. “I do. The day it begins to get old is the day I retire.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who can sit still and not be doing something,” she said, looking quizzically at him.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t work,” he corrected her. “Just that I’d retire from the business. I don’t need to work another day in my life if I don’t want to, but you’re right, I would need something else to do.”
She seemed to consider for a moment, tilting her head to one side before saying, “Maybe instead of giving up the business, you could add to it. You’ve already got a music section going. Why not focus on bringing in a particular set of individuals instead of just bands? Or start something new…maybe something like Netflix or Hulu, but with a twist? What are your favorite tv shows and movies?”
Ev considered for a moment, floored by her interest. “I love anything in speculative fiction, so sci fi flicks and series, fantasy ones are always on my list. And I love war stories based on actual historical events.” He paused, then added, “You know, you’ve just opened up a can of worms, because I also love documentaries, and classic cartoons.”
She laughed, making Ev laugh with her. “Sorry, my bad.”
He loved the way she entered fully into the moment, so much so that she was startled by the arrival of the server with a request for their dessert order.
“None for me, thanks,” she said. “I’m full.”
Ev asked for the bill and once he had sent his card off, he said, “So tell me about the women you’ve lined up for me to see.”
He watched as Maxine blinked, and he hid his grin with difficulty. It took her a few seconds to catch up with him, and then she said,
“Oh. Well, one is a grandmother who became homeless after her husband died. She couldn’t afford to keep paying the mortgage on her fixed income, even with her husband’s pension and insurance, because their jobs hadn’t been high-paying jobs to begin with. And her only child is in prison. She has custody of her grandchildren, both of whom are in high school. She would be perfect for the day job when Jeff has therapy. The other one is about our age, and recently lost her job in a company that was downsizing. She would prefer a full-time position, but she’d be good as well, because she’s a calm and steady individual.”
“Send me their information and I’ll contact them. And once I’ve decided, I’ll let you know.”
Once the bill was paid, Ev led her out into the cool night air. He was reluctant to leave as it would mean ending their time together, and he didn’t want to do that just yet. But he could find no further reason to delay taking her home. All the way back to her condo, as she sat quietly, he thought about how, if she were any other woman, the evening would end. Kisses by the door would lead to an invitation to stay the night, which he would take full advantage of, making sure to leave before the woman woke the next day. If they had a second encounter, he’d stay for breakfast at least.
But this was Maxine Cousins, a woman he was coming to respect, a woman he was coming to admire, a woman he wanted more with than a quick roll in the hay. He needed to move much more carefully with her, to go at her pace, if he ever hoped to get to the place where she would even permit him to kiss her the way he already wanted to do. He turned in through the gates that led to her building, and once he found a spot to park in, he walked with her up to her apartment.
The ride in the elevator was excruciating for him. Her perfume, the curve of her cheekbones, the swell of her lips, her full breasts, the color of her dress and those almost naked shoulders…everything conspired to wind him up until his spine was rigid with the tense control he was maintaining over himself. At her door, he plastered a smile on his face, hoping it didn’t look as false as it felt.
“I had a lovely time this evening, Ev,” Maxine said. “Thank you for the invitation.”
“Thank you for accepting. The pleasure was mine.”
He remembered at the last second that he had pocketed her key earlier when he had locked it on their way out. He removed it and opened her door for her, dropping it into her open palm. Then he stepped away and watched as her smile warmed her face.
“Goodnight, Ev,” she said, and extended a hand.
He knew he should just shake her hand and leave, but something baser made him use it to pull her in so he could kiss her cheek. His lips landed on her soft skin and he inhaled, to try and borrow her scent to keep with him when he left. He let his lips linger for a long moment before removing them and stepping back.
“Goodnight, Maxine,” he said, registering her soft gasp of surprise at his kiss.
He looked into her eyes then, and saw that he was not alone in wanting more than a chaste kiss at the door. But he was determined to move slowly. So he took another step back and pushed her gently inside. She closed the door in his face, and he stayed there for another few seconds until he could will his legs to move. Then he turned and walked away.