Page 14 of Undercover
I wasn’t actually planning on fucking you tonight.
Christ. So fucking condescending. Like it was all up to him, his decision alone whether I put out, no matter what off-hand, even more condescending,Obviously I’d need your buy-in toohe tacked on. The pierced, slutty twink who’d kissed him in a park…of course that guy would be ready to bend over, right? So maybe I’d brought it on myself, but I stilldeserved better, damn it.
I squared my shoulders, shook my head at my orange reflection, and marched out of the bathroom.
No running away from the stupid, predictable consequences of my own poor decision-making. And no rolling over with my ass in the air, either. So Alec had crudely propositioned me and then backpedaled, pissed that I wasn’t quite as easy as he thought and wanting to save a little face. So maybe I’d slipped into my usual, fake, slutty persona tonight, out of nerves—and because it’d been so long since I just let myself bemyselfwith a man I might want to sleep with that I’d forgotten how.
I’d go out there, and I’d drink another glass of wine, and I’d remember how to be Gabe Middleton, Ph.D. candidate and intelligent man of the world, instead of slutty, twinky, easy Gabe-the-club-rat with an unlimited credit card and no standards. If Alec walked, then he didn’t deserve me. And if I walked first, when he inevitably didn’t like the real me, then at least I could do it with my head held high.
I spotted Alec at our table, toying with the beer glass in front of him. As I approached, I saw he hadn’t gotten me another drink. Huh. He’d expected me to ditch him, then. Smarter than he’d let on, I guessed. Still, I’d promised to come back, and here I was. I’d see it out to the end.
He glanced over his shoulder as I walked up, and straightened up in his seat as I slid in opposite him. “Just a sec,” he said, and waved at the server, who’d stopped by a nearby table with a tray of drinks. A moment later, a fresh glass of malbec appeared in front of me, and the server vanished again with a smile.
“Thanks?” I picked up the glass, more than a little confused.
Alec shrugged, his muscular shoulders making the gesture a little bigger than it should have been. “I didn’t want you to think I’d slipped anything in it, so I had them wait until you got back.”
“I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Oh, God, I totally would have, but only after I’d taken my first sip…and score another point for Mr. Hot, Scruffy, and Surprisingly Perceptive and Thoughtful. A little of my annoyance melted away. Okay, so he’d been an asshole. But not a total asshole, if he’d gone out of his way to put me at my ease afterward.
His mouth quirked up at one side, and he looked at me levelly over the rim of his pint glass. His dark eyes glittered in the low light. “Yeah, you would.” He set the glass down on its coaster with a thump. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m shit at this. Dates. Seriously, this is one of my better ones, believe it or not.”
I sputtered into the malbec, narrowly avoiding getting some up my nose. “What? Are you—you can’t be—” I burst into laughter, putting the glass down so I didn’t spill it all over my lap. “Sorry,” I wheezed. Oh, God, he was going to hate me. “Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. I’m such a dick.”
Alec’s hard, serious face split in what I realized had to be the first actual smile I’d gotten out of him. Jesus, he was even hotter when he wasn’t scowling. So not fair.
“I think you’ve earned the right to laugh about it,” he said ruefully. “I mean, here you are.” He gestured, encompassing V and V and him and me and all of it, and the giggles hit me again, until I ended up propping my elbow on the table and leaning my forehead in my hand, waving at him with the other to wordlessly say,Give me a minute, I’m just being an idiot.
And he did. When I looked up at last, he’d finished about a third of his beer, and he’d leaned back against the booth’s backrest, completely at his ease. Patient. Amused, maybe, but not in a mean way.
I eased back myself, picking up my wine again and feeling strangely—better. Lighter. Like maybe all I’d needed was a good giggle fit to slot the universe back into place again, or at least to slotmeback into my place in it.
A sip of wine settled the last of my shakiness, and I cleared my throat. “So if this is one of your better dates, you should definitely tell me about the worst.” His lips started to pull down into another frown. Oh, no, not when I’d just started to crack him. “Listen,” I said, leaning conspiratorially across the table and lowering my voice, “you can tell me anything. I promise to laugh at you.” I waggled my eyebrows and grinned.
And miracle of miracles, Alec smiled, and then smiled wide enough to show a set of white but slightly crooked and oddly charming teeth, and then—laughed. A full, warm chuckle that lit him up from the inside and setmyinsides melting. He had no business being that attractive, not when I hadn’t decided whether or not I liked him.
Not when I probably shouldn’t like him, because everything about him screamedbad idea.
“Fine,” Alec said once he’d recovered, a smile still curling the corners of his mouth. “Let me tell you about the time a guy threw his drink on me before we’d even ordered dinner…”
His story held me enthralled, more because of the way he told it than the details themselves. Alec clearly had a sense of humor—about himself, even, which made me melt even more. God, I needed to get a grip. His dark eyes gleamed, his lips…shit, his incredibly mobile, expressive lips, making me think about all the things he could do with them if I took him home after all…
“…and my sister told me it was my fault, and I should’ve pretended to be enthusiastic about going away for a weekend with him, his recent ex, his ex’s poly boyfriends, and six chihuahuas, and I’d end up dying alone.” Alec pulled a face, his scowl somehow managing to be more self-deprecating than off-putting this time. “And that’s the story of my worst date. Laugh it up.”
“Six chihuahuas,” I said a little breathlessly. I couldn’t find a witty reply, and I couldn’t even laugh, although the story had been ridiculous. I couldn’t focus on anything but Alec’s shoulders and chest and mouth, and the parts of him I couldn’t see beneath the edge of the table but could vividly imagine. “If it were me, I’d have dumped my drink on him first and run away before he could walk out on me.”
“I dodged a bullet,” Alec said agreeably. “Even though I probably will die alone.”
He shifted uneasily and picked up the dregs of his beer, polishing it off in one long swig, his throat moving distractingly. Alec hadn’t meant to say that, I didn’t think, and maybe he’d surprised himself more than me.
“It’s okay. I mean, I will too.”
I hadn’t meant to say that, either, and my glass was already empty when I lifted it to my lips.
A heavy silence fell. Shit. Should I beat my forehead against the table in despair? Grab a piece of paper and a pen so Alec could take notes on the new worst date of his life, for the next time he needed to try to entertain someone over drinks? How had I turned drawing him out and persuading him to tell me a funny story into the kind of maudlin moment you usually got at the end of the night after six clubs and ten tequila shots?
Alec set his glass down with a thump. “No, you won’t,” he said, his voice low and serious, nearly drowned out by the jazzy piano playing overhead. They’d turned the music up a little as the night went on, and it looked like someone might be setting up for a live show on the stage across the room. I glanced up at him to find him gazing at me intently, leaning forward a little over the table. “You’re gorgeous.”
I waited for a second, hoping for anand. Nope. He stopped there. Gorgeous. Which…I appreciated—really. Who didn’t want an incredibly attractive man to call him gorgeous?
