Page 99 of South Beach Bodyguards

By Friday, it was apparent to me that Wester was not lying when he said he didn’t date much. His texts were random and alternated between stilted and super sexual, which he then instantly retreated from.

They were things like “do you like sushi?” then when I said yes, he answered, “I don’t.”

My personal favorite was “I want to see you naked.” Followed immediately by “I mean, under your clothes.” It made no sense. Literally no sense.

It was liberating. So the charming bad boy was a little insecure when it came to actual dating. He knew how to get a woman out of her clothes, but had no idea how to just hang out.

He rang my doorbell at five minutes to eight and I appreciated that he didn’t just text to let me know he was downstairs. I opened the door and smiled. “Hi.” He looked serious. Intense. Nervous. The caged animal again, ready to pounce.

Wester had on black jeans and a turquoise shirt that made his eyes seem even cooler. “Hi.”

“Do you want to come in?” Maybe we needed an icebreaker. I didn’t feel nervous as much as I did excited, but the way he looked I was anticipating a very silent car ride, and I didn’t want that.

“Sure.” He stepped inside and glanced around. “This is nice. You have real furniture.”

That made me laugh. “I buy used furniture online. It’s the modern equivalent of my grandmother going to garage sales every weekend. She got some awesome deals and furnished our whole house when I was a kid.” I sat down on the couch and gestured for him to sit next to me.

“Your grandmother raised you?”

I nodded. “Grandparents. My mom had drug problems. She popped in and out, then finally just disappeared all together. She overdosed when Eva and I were ten.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” I shrugged. “My grandparents are awesome people. They still live in Jacksonville. How about you? You mentioned your mom.”

He sat next to me and put his forearms on his knees. He still looked uncomfortable. “It was just me and my mom. My dad bounced when I was little. My mother is loving, yet very heavy-handed. She never took shit from me and she did it wearing heels and she always managed to pay the bills.”

“That’s how my grandparents were. We were the kind of poor where we always had food and a roof over our heads and clothes to wear, but there weren’t extras. I didn’t understand they struggled financially until I was older and saw other families with bigger houses and newer things. My grandmother reused everything. Like including Ziplock bags.”

“My mom is a shopaholic. But she buys cheap stuff from the dollar store. I can’t figure it out. How many floral wreaths does one woman need?”

That made me laugh. “I don’t know. One for every door?”

He made a face.

“Can I get you a drink?” I asked. “Or do you want to go?”

“We should go,” he said, and his eyes dropped to my lips.

Well, damn. Not even discussing our childhoods could kill his libido. Here I had actually not been thinking about him naked for once. “Where are we going?”

“Some restaurant.”

Helpful. Not. “As long as they serve food, I’m fine.”

Wester drove us to the area in Coral Gables that had tons of restaurants and boutiques. I didn’t miss the beach living there because it was a real neighborhood, not crowded with tourists. I had given up that particular fantasy of being steps to the water almost immediately when I moved to South Florida.

When we walked from the car to the restaurant, he stayed close to me, but he didn’t touch me in any way. He was quiet, too. I decided he was trying to sort out how to do this. I had given him such a hard time about using lines on me, I felt like he was schooling his responses to be more neutral. It didn’t feel natural. He was stilted and I was stilted as a result.

We were being polite. Distant.

“Did you pick this place because you thought I would like it?” I asked as we put our name on the waiting list. Being Friday night, it was crowded.

He looked like a deer in the headlights. “Yes. Why? I mean, I thought it seemed like a date-place. Was I wrong?”

“Wester.” Having the upper hand was absolutely zero fun if I couldn’t get more than two words at a time out of him. “This isn’t a test. You don’t have to prove anything to me. Just be yourself.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. We were waiting for our name to be called for a table outside by the street. “Oh, my God,” he said. “You just told me to be myself like I’m an awkward fourteen year old and you’re my mother. I officially am quitting trying to date.” He glared at me. “I was actually walking down the fucking sidewalk wondering if I’m supposed to hold your hand or not. I can’t do this.”

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