Читать книгу Her Rebound Guy - Jennifer Lohmann - Страница 14

CHAPTER FOUR

“SO, TELL ME about your dog. Why is he named Seamus?” Mr. Swoony—she supposed she should be calling him Caleb now—asked as he lounged in the bar’s booth. Lounge was a quiet word for the sprawl of all his limbs across the fabric. Only a man at ease with his body from tip to toe could so easily extend his extremities without worrying about whacking over the large vase of flowers next to his right hand.

He was probably good in bed. A man that comfortable with himself had to be good in bed, right? Or, maybe, it meant that he only thought of himself. What did she know? Neil was the last man she might have looked at and evaluated how good he’d be in bed, and yet she couldn’t remember if she’d ever done that. Since it had been college, probably not.

She took a sip from her Aviation cocktail, smiling a little. At her thoughts. At her lack of experience. At the big leap she felt like she was taking into life. She wasn’t smiling at Caleb, exactly, until she caught his gaze and a shiver of pleasure ran down her spine.

Definitely good in bed. More certainly, it had been over a year since she’d had sex and that was long enough to make a woman imagine orgasms in every man’s gaze.

“Seamus?” She looked away quickly before she actually imagined what the sex would be like. That sounded too much like committing herself to a roll in the hay, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. Over a year might be a long time, but she could wait longer. She wasn’t looking for an open barn door.

“The shelter said he was found muddy, in a swamp. The woman who found him and cleaned him up said he looked like a half-dead beast dragged out of the bogs.” She shrugged, a little self-conscious. “It made me think of Seamus Heaney.”

He raised a black brow, which made her more self-conscious. “Poetry, huh?” Then he smiled and her self-consciousness disappeared with his casual acceptance.

“I’m proof that English majors get jobs.”

He barked a laugh. “So am I.”

They shared another quick glance that made her toes tingle. It was harder to look away this time.

Friends told her that she needed to know what she wanted with this whole dating thing, but they hadn’t told her how to know what the person she had a drink with wanted out of the experience. Well, except for the bride, Jennifer. But Jennifer’s advice had only been to pick the right dating site and avoid handsome men. Caleb was in direct violation of at least one of those pieces of advice.

What did Caleb want?

Unable to bring herself to ask that question, she asked, “What do you do?” instead, spinning her martini glass on the table. His profile had said he was a reporter, but that was vague.

“I write for the Raleigh paper. Politics. I cover the General Assembly.”

That set her back a little in her seat. “Not a simple job. And always something to report on.” Anything happening in national politics had to have a run in the state first, sometimes including the out-and-out battles.

“All those bills made in the dead of night. I have trouble keeping track,” she confessed. “And the laws they pass don’t seem to relate to anything. What does women’s health have to do with motorcycle safety laws?” She’d been against that one on principle. And Leslie was one of her favorite people to work with, so she’d been against the bill that banned people from bathrooms and even called her representatives about that one. She was prouder of her stance when she learned later that the bill had included a bunch of other stuff about restricting local government. Frankly, she was generally against bills coming out of her state capital on principle. Maybe she would be for them under different, more open circumstances, but she didn’t know what was in them because they were presented and passed within hours.

Secrecy was bad, and being against secrecy was easy. That was a political stance she could get behind. But having to admit that she struggled to keep track made her feel like she was out of her league, especially when the only other thing she could think to add was, “Your job sounds hard.”

He smiled, like he heard it all the time. But also like he enjoyed his job and was not-so-secretly pleased every time someone said, “Oohh.”

“It uses my writing skills, which is good. And I like talking to people, and being a reporter gives me an excuse to ask people questions. And,” he shrugged like he was humble about his job, even though she could tell he wasn’t, “I think freedom of the press is important. So, I’m glad to be a part of that.”

“You said English major, not a journalism major. Do you have a wild tale of career changes? Some dark experience in your past that made you determined to expose evildoers and right wrongs?”

“Like a bite from a radioactive spider?” He had the most delightful shrug. Comfortable and agreeable, like he’d seemed to be all night. She tried to imagine him tracking down sources—if they even called them sources—or badgering someone he was interviewing until they gave away their secrets. Tried and couldn’t. He seemed too slippery to be hard, and she didn’t even mean slippery in a bad way. More like water, flowing around obstacles and making its own path.

And, like water, he could settle into a comfortable stillness, which he did as he answered her question. “I liked to write as a kid, tell stories and make up lives of the neighbors’ pets. I’d sit them down and ask them questions about their day, then report the gossip to my parents.”

His face froze for a moment, so clear that she thought she could see all the way to the bottom of his soul and some inner hurt he was trying to hide, but then he smiled and the secrets he might be keeping were obscured by the mask he wore.

A reflecting pool she would be tempted to sit and think next to suddenly revealing the soul of the water sprite inside.

“My dad didn’t like me telling those stories,” he said. “Especially after Mom died. She’d been the person who liked to hear them most. ‘Kids’ nonsense,’ he used to say, and he would tell me I was too old to be playing make-believe.”

His cheeks were smooth, his eyes were wide and clear, and anyone glancing over at their table wouldn’t think he might be saying anything upsetting. For all Beck could tell, he didn’t consider this to be an upsetting story.

Still pretending, she thought. Only he doesn’t realize he’s pretending anymore.

“That’s the kind of guy my dad is, you know. Old-fashioned. Men are men and that means stoic faces and no talking to pets. So, I would tell the stories to my younger sister and we would play television. Game shows and TV news, with me reporting on the pets. For some reason, my sister always reported on weather and sports.” His voice softened when he spoke about his sister, and that was cute. And, if she were honest, made her a bit jealous as an only child.

“Anyway,” he said with a shake of his head that cleared the emotion out of his voice, “Once I got to college, I thought I should be a writer, because I liked to tell those stories. My roommate worked for the college paper and I tagged along, writing stories for them. I covered town politics and how it affected the college.”

He snorted. “I used to joke that college town politics were a lot like the politics of the pets—all that emotion sharing a tight space. One Christmas, I was watching the nightly news with my dad and sister. I don’t even remember what the reporter was talking about, but I remember my dad complaining about politicians and ‘the man’ and the cheats. It’s not like he did bad. He was a car salesman at a nice dealership and he made a good living, but he seemed to always think the world was keeping secrets from him and those secrets were why he wasn’t doing better.”

Beck nodded in sympathy. “I grew up in DC. I really should know and understand politics better than I do, but it always seemed too...opaque is the word I want, I think. And getting older hasn’t made it any easier to understand.” She hadn’t paid that much attention, either. Both because North Carolina politics were dead-of-night things and because politics, like her parents, had always seemed cold.

“Yeah. That’s how most people feel, I think. My dad is my audience, even though he thinks I’m as crooked as the people I report on.”

She winced at that admission.

“I understood what the reporter was talking about. The local politics I was reporting on for the school paper are almost as far from national politics as a cat is from a dog, but they’re still pets and I understood pets. My dad didn’t and still doesn’t.”

“Reporting seems like a manly job. Smoke-filled backrooms. Secret committees.” She knew what it was to have parents who didn’t approve of your work. Her parents had been remote and never deigned to talk with her about their jobs, but they were still shocked when she didn’t follow in their footsteps.

Her parents thought she was a glorified waitress. They didn’t see how she made memories for people or why that might be a worthwhile job.

“Some of it is contamination by proximity.” This shrug was less effortless. “Politicians are all crooks and, since I count some politicians as my friends, then I must be a crook, too.”

“And are you? That seems like the sort of thing I should know, even if this is a first date.”

She meant it as a joke and he laughed, both of them pretending that what she’d said had actually been funny. For all the momentary glimpses she’d gotten of his soul, his surface might as well be a thick sheet of ice. Short of some thaw, she couldn’t see in.

And he can’t see out. Or in, either. There was a little boy in there still hurt by his father’s disapproval, and that little boy didn’t talk to the man sitting across the table from her.

“I don’t think my dad wants to know more about the rules that govern his life. If he knew, he might have to do something about the things that make him unhappy. And some of it is that he doesn’t like his son knowing more than he does. To him, I’m still telling stories and by stories, he means lies. Holidays at my house are a barrel of laughs.”

He snorted again, a wry noise offset by his embarrassed half smile. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this, especially after one drink on a first date. Normally, I just tell people that my sister and I played television news as kids, but I like writing more than I like television news, so here I am. That’s the sanitized version.”

It was her turn to shrug and she tried to make it the easy, careless movement he’d seemed to perfect. “I’m easy to talk to?”

“Yes, Ms. Dogfan, yes, you are. In fact, you are so easy to talk to that I’m going to get another drink. Want one?”

“Yes, please.” She liked being thought of as easy to talk to. Nothing he’d confessed had been scandalous, but she knew why it felt personal. And she didn’t think it was that she was easy to talk to so much as it was the dark bar, with soft music and bench seats that cocooned around them. A little bubble, where nothing they confessed to each other would escape.

Safe, she thought. He had felt safe talking with her, which she understood, since she felt safe sitting here with him, too. Which surprised her. Standing outside the bar, shifting back and forth on her feet, she’d felt like her nerves were radiating out through Durham’s small downtown, forcing walkers to push through it like it was a heavy wind.

Those nerves had stayed with her as she’d ordered her drink and as she’d silenced her phone. Then Caleb had sat down, asked about Seamus and poof—all those nerves were gone. If he asked, she might lay out all her secrets on the table for him to pick through.

Might. She was determined to be smart about this whole dating thing and laying her baggage on the table for Caleb to examine was not even in the same time zone as smart.

Though, she considered as she watched the way he laughed with the bartender and chatted up other people at the bar, smart didn’t seem like much fun when his lanky body was part of the equation. In the abstract, all the contradicting advice left her at sea in her own life, each life preserver she was being tossed leading her to an unknown shore.

She could land on Caleb. She’d probably be back adrift again, but kissing those shoulders might be worth it. And then she could say she tried. One less choice available to her.

She was still watching him as he returned with two drinks and a report of snacks. Carefree as he was—or as he was pretending to be, considering the story he’d told her about how he got into journalism—her staring didn’t seem to bother him. “It’s not dinner,” he said as he sat down and told her what he ordered. “But we could go get dinner, if you want.”

She cocked her head. “You just ordered us another drink.”

“Well, yes.” He looked amused and she wasn’t sure what he was smiling about until he said, “Am I just a two-drink dude, or might you want dinner even after that second drink?”

“Oh!” He’d told her that personal and revealing story, which was sweet, but that he liked her well enough to think even an hour into the future hadn’t occurred to her. She’d been thinking well over an hour into the future, but she’d been thinking about how good his black hair would look against her white sheets. Dinner hadn’t played a part in any of those thoughts.

“Let’s see how we feel after this second drink and round of snacks. Maybe we won’t need dinner,” she said.

For a moment, she thought she saw the hurt of rejection flitter over his face, but then he seemed to consider what else she might mean. He put his hand on the table, palm up. “No dinner, huh?”

Emboldened by the soft lighting and a little alcohol, Beck put her hand on top of his. “Maybe no dinner. Depends on how hungry we are.”

He raised an eyebrow. They were holding hands, or not quite. When he curled his fingers, the tips brushed her palm and she could feel his touch in her toes. “Does it also depend on what we’re hungry for?”

“Yes.”

“Your lead, Beck.” Their hands were still touching, hers on top, both with the ability and acknowledgment that she could pull away at any moment. That he wanted her to be touching him, but wouldn’t argue if she felt otherwise. She relaxed her arm, letting her palm fall onto his and curled her fingers around the side of his hand.

His recognition that she could say no made her want to say yes. It made her want to scream “yes” as he was on top of her, maybe kissing her neck.

Sex with a near-deadly handsome near stranger was an option to her now. She could take this man home with her. She could go home with him. The realization made her feel almost two feet taller. And she certainly felt stronger. There had been moments during her separation when she had realized that she could make her own choices, but for the first time, she felt like she was in control.

The second feeling was different and it was heady.

She didn’t lift her hand when their snacks were brought over. He didn’t move his hand, either, and they both switched off drinking and eating with the other hand. She didn’t want to let him go.

Over their second round of drinks, he asked her about her job. Her second cocktail buzzed through her head. The room was dim. So, when he asked her what she liked about her job, she felt comfortable enough to confess the truth. “Honestly, it’s been hard. I’m not a wedding planner and people come to my restaurant for other types of celebrations, but mostly it’s weddings. I talk to a lot of excited brides who are certain that this is forever and, well, that’s hard right now.”

She looked at the bar for a moment, studying the bartender’s movements and the way the woman leaned into customers she liked and leaned away from the ones she didn’t. Once she felt less immersed in her own pain, she turned her attention back to Caleb. “It’s a little easier now than it was. I’m no longer angry at my ex, at the world and especially at the happy couples.”

She paused to take a sip of her cocktail. “Work is easier when I can celebrate with my customers, instead of pretending.”

“Newly divorced, then?” he asked.

“My divorce went through...” She paused, pleased the date didn’t pop into her head immediately. “A couple weeks ago.”

She pressed her lips together, but the words slipped out anyway. “You’re my first date since Neil left. God, which makes you my first date in over ten years.”

He sat up straight, which amused her. He had looked so good when he was relaxed and easy in his chair. Sitting up straight, shoulders back, chin lifted didn’t seem to fit his romantic, sensual lips. “Am I? Well, then, I shall be extra good tonight.”

“You would treat me differently because I haven’t had a date in forever?” For reasons she couldn’t put her finger on, she found that offensive.

“I remember what it was like to be divorced. I felt like I was hunting around for the real Caleb, who I was without my ex around. I didn’t know what I wanted or why. The first woman I went on a date with gave me time to figure myself out. And she was patient when I freaked a little. It’s a gift I would like to pass on to you.”

She still eyed him suspiciously. “Should I worry that you’re too perfect?”

“No pressure is the point. No one needs pressure, but you especially don’t need it now.”

“So, am I going to be disappointed by man number two that I date?”

He shrugged. “I can’t speak for man number two. I hope not. But I understand men can be shits. I’m probably a shit more than I realize. Or would admit to.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. He was open and disarming. It was almost an impossible combination to resist. She picked up the last olive and popped it in her mouth, and then took a sip of the last bit of her drink. “Let’s go,” she said, tightening her fingers so that she had a hold on his hand.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“I have food at my house.” She could make her own choices and she was choosing him. At least for tonight.

“Are you okay to drive?”

She turned her head and knew the answer immediately. “No.”

“Are you okay to invite me home?”

“Yes.” She bit her bottom lip, but in for a penny, in for a pound. “I think I made the decision to bring you home when you put your hand out. I didn’t need the second drink to loosen my inhibitions, but I did want to talk with you more.”

“Give me a chance to mess up,” he said, but he was smiling and there was no malice in his voice.

“I like to think I was giving you a chance to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Tell you what. I’ll go and close out our tabs. We can add your drinks to my bill. We’ll get a takeout pizza from the place down the street so you don’t have to make us dinner. Then we’ll head to your place.”

“Are you giving me a chance to change my mind?” For some reason, the idea that he might be doing that pissed her off. She appreciated the lack of pressure. She didn’t need to be treated like a child.

“Hell, no.” He caught her gaze and the air between them practically caught fire. “I’m hungry. I like pizza. And I plan on stripping your clothes off as soon as we step through your door.” He hadn’t needed to tell her his plans; she could read them in his slow, sensual smile. “That won’t leave you time to make us dinner.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod as she scooted out of the booth. She wanted this. She wanted him.

She waited by the door, watching while he paid for their food and drinks. His body was long and lean. He’d slouched and practically relaxed all through drinks, but he was also in control of each part from tip to toe. He lounged because he was completely comfortable in his body, not because he was lazy. He rolled with that confidence as he walked toward her. “Ready?”

“Yes,” she answered as she slipped through the open door.

Out on the street, she took the elbow he offered and sank against him for the walk to the pizza place. She hadn’t had so much to drink that she was unsteady on her feet, but she usually drank wine, not cocktails. And at home, not a bar. Plus, there had been all those months that she hadn’t kept wine at home, for fear that it would become too quick a companion to her sorrow.

The Aviations were going straight to her head. The knowledge that she was going to have sex was going...well, it was going straight to the rest of her body, making her weak in the knees. Coming on her own wasn’t the same as sharing the experience with someone. And Caleb was going to be a good person to share the experience with.

“Do you trust me to drive your car?” he asked, after they’d ordered their pizza and were back on the sidewalk, escaping the press of the crowded restaurant.

His question pulled her back, unhappily, to reality. She’d been happily imagining what his hand on her breast would be like and had to ask him to repeat himself.

“Do you trust me to drive your car?” When she looked up at him, the streetlight caught a twinkle in his eye that made her think he knew exactly what she had been thinking.

“Why?” She wasn’t sure of the answer. Trust seemed a tricky thing in a situation like this. She had trusted his emails enough to say yes to the date. In the bar she trusted him enough to slip her hand into his and let him lead her wherever he wanted her to go.

Which just proved Marsie right. When Beck had wondered if she should invite a man back over to her house after a first date or go to a hotel or something, Marsie’s advice had been to ask why she would be having sex with a man she didn’t trust enough to see where she lived.

Beck hadn’t had a good answer to that one.

She had read The Gift of Fear. She listened to her gut. And Caleb didn’t ring any alarm bells with her. But that was sex and walking through her front door. She didn’t know anything about his driving.

They were standing close to each other on the sidewalk. She felt his every movement and had to focus on what he was saying instead of letting her mind wander to how his body would feel, naked against hers.

“Well,” he explained, “you don’t feel comfortable driving. And driving won’t be a problem for me. I could drive you to your house in my car and, tomorrow morning, drive you to come get your car. Or, I could drive you in your car to your house and I’m the one who has to come get my car in the morning. Me driving your car seems both the more gentlemanly thing to do and the most practical. If we were going to my house, I’d say we should take my car.”

She looked up at him and bit her lip. What if he wouldn’t leave in the morning? She’d been living alone in her house for over a year and, to be honest, quite liked it. The toilet seat was never up.

“Or,” he said as he leaned against the building and she felt like she had space to breathe—to think, “we could take our pizza and eat it over on the tables at Five Points and we can go our separate ways for the night. And there are hotels. Nice ones. If you’re looking for a night, but not another date.”

He shrugged. “But I’d like to see you another time.”

The shrug was the clincher, full of interest but no pressure that she raise that toilet seat because he expected it. “Drive me home. We’ll have pizza and see where we go from there. That sounds good.”

He peeled himself off the building and was back in her space again. She liked him in her space. Frankly, she wanted him to be in more of her space. For there to be no space. He probably had dark, curly chest chair and she wanted to run her hands over it.

“Great.” God, even his smile was romantic, slow and full of promises. She was going to have sex. She was going to come. For the first time in months, she wouldn’t be completely responsible for making it happen. And it was going to be awesome.

The woman at the hostess stand gestured to them from the other side of the restaurant’s big windows. Beck stayed outside while Caleb went in and got the pizza. When he hit the sidewalk, a box of hot pizza in his hand, she fell into step beside him while they walked to her car.

She didn’t say anything, wasn’t even sure there was anything to say. It felt almost like losing her virginity for a second time—she could either babble out her nerves or let them keep her quiet company. She chose quiet company.