Page 44 of Her Braun
She sighed and shook her head. “That was what I came in here for, but I kept getting sucked into-”
“Tractor beams of boredom?”
They laughed together and he reached over the bar and picked up a laminated sheet of paper. She caught a whiff of scent and closed her eyes to inhale it.
She hadn't smelled that particular scent on him before, but then again, he was dressed to the nines and at her home they'd been in casual clothes.
Kay had to drop her head and clear her throat to keep from being caught when he stood back up.
“Here.”
Here?
She looked from his smiling face to the paper he held in front of her.
Taking it in her hand she couldn’t help the little happy sound she made as she saw it was the menu of craft cocktails from the bar. “This is what I needed.” She skimmed her gaze over the paper. "These look amazing!"
“That’s what the bartender told me." He leaned in a little closer. "Go ahead and pick one, my treat.”
She heard his deeper voice and basked in the feelings it gave her.
“Hmm,” she looked at the menu and saw a number of great options, but there was one that caught her interest more than the others, keeping her attention even after reading through the whole list.
“Picked one?”
She smiled up at him and then shook her head. “I did, but you don’t have to get me a drink.”
A little line creased the skin between his eyebrows, and she winced.
Trust her to take a sweet moment and ruin it.
“Let me? Please? I really just want to do something nice for you.”
His words hit her square in the heart.
She really wanted to accept the offer, but she was also having a hard time with the idea that Gibson was being so kind to her when she had cut him off the last time they'd seen each other.
“I’d like to say yes,” she tried to find a reason to accept it, but she was so used to sabotaging herself it was almost second nature, “but I don’t want you to feel obligated since you offered.”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter, but it didn’t feel like he was laughing at her. Well, not in a bad way.
She started laughing too. “What?”
“Just accept the drink, Kay.”
She put the menu on the bar top and leaned in closer. "I feel horrible about the way I talked to you at my house. I wasn't in my right headspace, but I never should have said that to you."
He shook his head and put his hand on the bar top just a few inches away from hers, but she felt like she could feel his warmth. "Kay, I don't mind that you said it. I want to know what's going on in your head. Just like I'm hoping you'll let me know what's in your heart someday. The only thing I don't want you to say is that you don't want to talk to me.
"I'm pretty sure that if we spend more time together, we're going to have conflicts between us. I just want to make sure that we talk it out."
She bit into the inside of her cheek. "I hate arguments. I'm not good at it."
She saw Gibson raise an eyebrow at that.
"If you were good at arguments and conflict, I'd be a little worried."
Kay let his words wash over her and she nodded. "Yeah, that wouldn't exactly be a good thing, but it’s kind of how I was raised. We didn't talk through things. My parents went silent,and it was my job to make myself scarce until they spoke to me again. I learned quite a bit of my... personal relationship skills from them, which," she let out a breath, "isn't something I'm proud of."
