Page 81 of The Last Dance

I shake my head. ‘No, no. Still very much on that. But I do have manners.’ Most of the time at least. It’s nice he’d volunteer but I’m not sure we’re in the entrée-sharing place anymore.

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly.

I glance up from my menu. ‘For what?’

He cocks his head. ‘For trying to protect me from something you knew would hurt me. For standing up for me. For losing your job for me. Even for agreeing to be sitting where you are right now.’

I wipe my overly sweating hands on my pants below the table. I’m absolutely positive I’ve never sweat this much before.

‘You’re my friend.’ I shrug as if losing my job were no big deal. ‘I could never let someone do what she was doing without saying something. I couldn’t let them talk about you the way they were. I’d have done it for any of my friends. You would have too.’

He nods. ‘I would have.’ We stare across the table at each other.

‘What can I get you two?’

Henry looks up, obviously startled by the waiter. We both order, handing our menus back to the waiter and sitting in silence, looking anywhere but at each other.

‘You need your own website, huh?’ He finally breaks the silence after what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes.

‘I guess so.’ I shrug, laughing nervously. ‘Ugh… Henry, I’m in way over my head here. You don’thaveto do this and I don’t expect you to do it for free either. I totally realize this is your job. I can pay you, but I don’t have a lot. I really loved my job and I don’t want to go back to being a barista at Starbucks. That would be such a huge backward step. I’d feel like a failure. I want to do something I love so when I said I’d compete with PDX Weekly, I wasn’t really thinking, I ju—’

‘Ambri.’ He stops me from rambling on and on. ‘It’s not a big deal. Iwantto do this. You deserve your dream job. Please, let me help.’ He opens his laptop, turning it towards me and coming around to my side of the table. ‘Do you mind?’ he asks before he sits.

I shake my head. When his leg touches mine the goosebumps speed all the way from my knee to my brain, immediately activating the butterflies now swirling through my insides.

‘It’s easier if we can both see the screen.’

I nod like a mute fool on the first date of her life. Only this isn’t a date and I should be able to act like the grown woman that I am supposed to be.

‘Did you have a vision for the site?’

‘My vision…’

He leans around his computer, his shoulder brushing against mine, as he reaches for his bag on the table now behind his laptop. His scent hits me like a dagger to the heart. I’ve never been able to forget it. And just like that suddenly the website vision I’d been overthinking all day is completely wiped from my head, replaced with the memory of him and me that night. I can feel his hand on my face, his lips on my own, the butterflies swarming in my chest as he pushed me against the wall, his breath on my skin. Every single emotion I had that night fills every part of me, paralyzing me from speaking or even breathing. I stare down at his laptop, the image of us playing in my head as if it were on the screen right in front of me.

‘Ambri…’ He turns towards me, his hand gently touching mine under the table.

‘Yeah?’ I pull my hand from his, finally coming out of my trance.

‘You OK?’

‘Um, yeah.’ I nod my head a little overly enthusiastic. ‘I’m sorry, what were we talking about?’

Real smooth, Ambri. And here I thought I could have a lunch with him and not make it awkward.

‘Your vision for the site.’ He smiles. An understanding smile as if he knows exactly what happened in my head and how I feel because he’s done it too.

‘Right, my vision for the site.’ I repeat it, hoping that this time it will sink in. I force myself to breathe and not think about the fact that we’re mere inches away from one another. ‘Food and music. I want to write the same kinds of things I was for PDX Weekly but more.’

‘Easy. I can do a site that appears as a split screen, a landing page of sorts where readers will choose between food and music to enter. I can set each section up like a blog so that you can easily update it even when I’m not around.’

‘That sounds good.’ My heart is finally starting to slow from the race it was running. I’ve never had that happen before. I was seriously paralyzed by the memory of us together. It’s not something I never think about, because it won’t stay away like the rest of my feelings. The difference is having him next to me as I relive it seems to be affecting me more than it normally would.

‘Sound Bites? Kind of a play on words…’ he asks, staring at his computer before glancing over to me. ‘For the website name? Sound Bites, for music and food.’

Sound Bites? It’s witty and flows well. I couldn’t have thought of anything more perfect myself and I’ve been trying.

‘Youjustcame up with that?’ I smile. ‘I love it.’

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