“This? This process or about dating and relationships in general?”
“Everything.” Rowan gives me a mysterious smile that I spend a few minutes trying to decode.
I realize the smile is because she noted that the kitchen, which is to my back, has our food ready, and she saw our waitress coming. She digs in as soon as her plate is set in front of her. I can’t help but watch her discreetly while she’s eating.
This. Woman. There is something about her that is just… refreshing. She maintains eye contact. She speaks her mind, but without being rude or mean. She actually wants me to succeed—I can see that now. It’s genuine. It’s not just about her keeping her job, although I’m sure that’s a huge motivating factor too. Knowing all of this makes me feel just a little bit softer where she’s concerned. I guess we’re in this together. We could both lose our jobs if this doesn’t work out.
Rowan is decidedly herself, and that’s refreshing too. She has her own style. She’s not afraid to be who she is. She’s confident. Classy. And she has no problem devouring a monster-sized sandwich with complete and utter abandon right in front of me.
I wouldn’t be lying if I said that something about Rowan makes me want to believe that happiness and even love are possible with another person. Whatever. It’s not like I’m ever going to do anything about those thoughts, because thoughts are often irrational, and I know they don’t dwell in reality.
I have a thousand things I can think of to say, and out of the thousand, only a few are appropriate, but I don’t let even those few out. Instead, I lapse into silence, wondering if this is comfortable silence or if I’m going to be accused of being creepy again.
CHAPTER 6
Rowan
I have to admit; tonight wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We ate, made tolerable small talk after, and left. He offered to pay. I offered to split the bill. And he agreed quite diplomatically without a huge fight going down.
Now we’re in his car again, and I’m glancing at his hands, which are gripping the wheel. He has a black dress shirt on with the sleeves rolled up, and I have to admit I’m a sucker for male forearms. I’m not sure, but to me, it’s a sexy part of the male anatomy. I know a few people might disagree with me on that, but whatever. Disagree if you like. The fact still remains that forearms are pretty much my biggest turn on. I love the way the muscles are shaped there, the crisp dark hairs, the striated veins that run over the surface. I love the play of tendons, skin, bone, and muscle, as it reaches the hand. It turns out Cliff has really nice hands too, especially for a guy who works in an office.
His fingers look like they’d have the rasp of roughness on their tips, and the palms would have just a few callouses, though I can’t say what from. I know his family’s company deals with gardening. I like to imagine him out doing yard work, but then my thoughts change, and suddenly, I’m thinking about him running his slightly rough hands over my arms. And a few other places.
I don’t know why I’m having thoughts like that, but it’s clear the rest of my body likes them, and I don’t like that. I realize the car is utterly silent. I’m doing my best to try and think of a way to encourage Cliff to break the silence with conversation before another long, awkward stretch of nothingness ensues all the way home, but I come up empty.
As it turns out, something else distracts us completely.
One minute we’re driving down the street, zipping along, passing other vehicles, the next, the car is coughing, gagging, sputtering, lurching, doing other alarming things. I crank my head around to stare at Cliff in horror, but he just calmly, with a look of resigned I’m in deep shit now, guides the car over to the side of the road. He puts it in park in front of a business that’s shut down for the night, but he doesn’t have to kill the ignition. The car stops running before he even gets a chance.
“What the heck? First, you run out of gas, and now you’re having car problems? Is this to prove to me that you didn’t actually plan what happened with Amanda?”
I’m ready to give him the benefit of the doubt, and yeah, humble pie sucks, but I’ll eat it if I have to, but then Cliff turns to me, and he has this look on his face, and I just know. A mixture of shock and horror fill up my chest. No. No way. This cannot be real.
“Are you serious?” I gasp. “You freaking ran out of gas? Now? Again?”
“I–err–it appears that way. I meant to get some on the way to pick you up, but I blanked on it. I’ve been driving on the gas from the can the tow company put in the car after the last time.”
“How can you forget?! I told you to get gas! I seriously and very specifically told you to get it!”
“I don’t know how I forgot. Maybe the whole threats from you and the fake date thing had something to do with stressing me out just a little!”
I can’t help it. I give Cliff a massive eye roll and snort-blow out my nose. “What on earth is wrong with you? How can you let this happen for the second night in a row?”
“Maybe if you didn’t choose a place across the city, I would have been able to get you home.”
“Maybe you should just put it in your phone as a daily freaking reminder to get freaking gas for your freaking car, so you don’t get freaking stranded on the freaking road.”
“Maybe the person who is making money off my shitty love life, and my mother, shouldn’t have asked to be taken out on a fake date in the first place because it’s absolutely ridiculous, and those self-help books are complete nonsense. Just admit it, princess, you’re lonely up there in the ivory tower.”
It takes a lot to make me angry. Annoyed, yes. I can get annoyed pretty easily, but I’m good at damping down on the actual emotions and things I blurt. Apparently, I have a Cliff-sized button somewhere that I wasn’t aware of, and it’s being pressed down HARD and repeatedly.
My mind switches off, and my mouth switches on, and I know this isn’t going to be good even before the words start coming. “Ivory tower?” I scoff. “Seriously? This from the guy with billionaire parents who are so depressed over how he has chosen to live his entitled freaking life that they have to pay to find him love? Yes. I’m sure you’ve had a really hard life and a crap ton of woes. You’re just a brat who never matured and grew up because you could hide behind a shit pile of money and do whatever you wanted.”
Cliff laughs, but not the nice, happy kind of laugh. This is a pissed off laugh. Apparently, he has a Rowan-sized button of his own, and I just stomped all over it.
“It’s nice to see your real personality come out. I knew it had to be hidden away in there somewhere. Congrats on being a judgmental jerk like the rest of the world. If you’ve read any of your own self-help bullshit, you should understand that money doesn’t fix everything.”
“Exactly,” I grind out, balling my hands into fists. “Which is why you’re acting the way you are. You haven’t been able to fix yourself yet.”
“Apparently, the books you lent me should do the trick. Turns out all I needed was you, oh mighty goddess of self-help and relationships.”
“Turns out all of this could have been avoided if you had just remembered, like the rest of the entire world, to get gas. Oh right. You’re not actually a responsible adult, though. Silly me. How could I have forgotten?”