Page 20 of Desirous

So, I sent her a text to tell her I’ll be coming over to see her tonight. She can choose not to answer the door, but I’m perfectly fine saying what I have to say to her through the door for all her neighbors to hear. It’s her choice.

I’m not sure that’s what I should have done, but I’ve never had to fight for someone before. Either it works, or it blows up in my face and I have to go with plan B. As to what that plan is, I have no idea.

Maybe stand outside her apartment building and blare music like that guy does in that movie my mother loves? I don’t think anyone does that anymore, especially since I can’t imagineholding a goddamned stereo above my head like that. Where would someone even find something like that?

As all of these thoughts run through my head, the limo rushes down the street toward Emma’s place and I sit in the backseat wishing I was anywhere else but here right now. The producers made sure to cover everything, including leaving us a bottle of chilled champagne, so I pop the cork and pour myself a glass, needing something to take the edge off how much I don’t want to do this date tonight.

The cameraman slides open the partition between the front seat and where I sit and pokes his head through. “We’re here.”

I don’t say anything since I’m not sure why he needed to tell me that little fact. He stares at me like I’m forgetting something important and finally points at the door.

“You need to go up to her door. Also, I think you were supposed to wait for her to break open the champagne.”

Fucking terrific. They’re making me do the whole thoughtful suitor act.

Downing the last of my champagne, I set the empty flute in the ice and give him a smile. “Oh, well.”

“I’ll be back there with you two from this point on. Just in case you didn’t realize that.”

While I fling the limo door open, I mumble, “I didn’t, but whatever. Not exactly the kind of threesome I generally enjoy, though.”

Behind me, I hear Randy chuckle before I slam the car door shut. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disinterested in a date in my entire life. Not even that one time my parents made me go out with that weird girl with braces who only talked about Lord of the Rings because her mother had met my mother at yoga class and the two of them were sure it would be good for their seventh-grade children to go to the school dance together. Even then I didn’t care as little as I do right now.

I hear footsteps and turn around to see Randy with his camera ready for Emma to open the door. Seriously?

“I didn’t know you would be filming every minute of this date. I thought it would be mostly at the restaurant,” I say at the bottom of the steps leading to her front door.

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and laughs. “Maria and Shane want every moment of tonight. From the first second you see each other to when you say goodnight.”

“Fantastic.”

Randy picks up on my sarcasm and laughs again. Like his bosses, he always seems too fucking happy. “They particularly love when I get embarrassing moments, so fair warning.”

Fucking lovely.

“Well, here goes. Make sure you get this because I’m not repeating it a second time,” I say as I begin to walk up to Emma’s front door.

Unlike Kat, she lives in a white stucco house that looks like it cost a fortune. She can’t afford this on a chef’s salary, especially considering the type of chef she is, so I’m assuming it’s a friend’s or her family’s home?

God, I hope there isn’t a group of people standing behind this door with her. It’ll be that seventh-grade date all over again.

I give a quick knock and silently wish someone would answer and say Emma decided to bail on the whole date thing tonight. That way I could head straight to Kat’s apartment and begin to convince her she should give me another chance.

My wish goes unfulfilled, and Emma appears in front of me dressed in a black dress that barely comes to the middle of her thighs and is cut so low that I’m getting a healthy view of her breasts. I’m surprised since I’ve never seen her dressed in anything but yoga pants and t-shirts and then our chef’s uniforms yesterday when taping of Chef on Chef began. She’s quite beautiful now that I see her like this, and if I wasn’tso preoccupied with another woman, I might consider sleeping with her.

She twirls around to show me a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of her and her tiny black dress that hides next to nothing. “What do you think? Do you think it’ll look good on camera?” she asks, genuinely concerned about that.

“It looks great. You look very nice, Emma. Ready?”

She turns back to say something to another person in the house, and I steel myself for the possibility that she’s going to introduce me to someone. Oh, God. I do not want to have to meet parents tonight.

Thankfully, she doesn’t invite me in or them to the door, and a few seconds later, she practically bounces down the stairs. Holding her hand out when she reaches the sidewalk, she smiles and says, “Come on! We have a date to get to, Alex.”

I glance over at Randy smiling as he films this entire scene and wonder how downright surly I must look right now. Forcing a smile, I walk down to her and take her hand in mine.

“Let’s go have a good time.”

Too bad that didn’t sound terribly convincing.

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