Page 10 of The Lamb and the Llama
His heart swelled at her candor, as well as the realization that they had something in common. This woman before him was just as passionate about history and culture as he was. “I’ve always thought going on a dig would be amazing. Especially after watching Josh Gates unearth a mummy live onExpedition Unknown.”
“You watch Josh Gates?” Amira’s eyes blinked in surprise.
“I do.” He nodded. “My interest probably stems from the summer my mother took me to the Met. I spent almost an entire day in the Egyptian exhibit alone. I refused to see anything else. My mom had to extend the trip one more day to go through the rest of the museum.” He chuckled at the memory.
“She sounds like a good mom,” Amira remarked.
“You know it.” He held up his glass in mock cheers to her memory. “She always taught me to go after what I wanted. Which is part of why I joined FUC. I wanted to travel, see the world, go on adventures.”
“I can relate,” Amira agreed. “But I’d be afraid to explore some areas.”
He found himself nodding at everything she was saying. “What are you afraid of?”
“My fear factors would be that I can’t swim and have an irrational fear of snakes.”
“You can’t swim either?” he asked, inadvertently admitting a weakness. When she raised an eyebrow, he answered her unasked question. “Not a lick, myself, and I know that sounds crazy for a llama. We are supposed to be excellent swimmers. But…”
“You have this innate nature where you can’t let go or relax, and therefore, you can’t float in a body of water because of it.”
He raised a brow at her and quirked his lips into a smile. “That’s oddly specific and almost spot-on. I don’t know how to relax; perhaps that’s why I always freak out in the water when I try to float. I just don’t seem to have the relaxation gene in me, I guess.”
“I think it’s something you can work on though. I mean, anyone can work on, not specifically you.” She chuckled, and he couldn’t help but think about how if she was involved, he could certainly learn to love relaxing.
“This is nice… talking,” he said, his smile growing wider as she spoke. How could this gorgeous woman understand so much about him? So many others didn’t. Especially at work, where they were so quick to judge him. Not that he could blame them because he’d always blundered his words.
“You don’t have a lot of friends?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m not good at making them. I wasn’t socialized much as a kid, since my father was in the military and we moved around a lot, making it hard to have lasting friendships. Not learning to do it young makes it harder to open up to anyone as an adult.”
“That must have been a lonely childhood,” Amira suggested with sympathy in her eyes.
“Sure, at first it was lonely. But when my father sprang for my first computer, it opened up a whole new world for me.”
“You didn’t have to be the new kid in school anymore,” she surmised.
“Exactly. I could make my screen name anything I wished. I could put out there only what I wanted others to know about me.”
“So, what was it?”
“What?”
“Your screen name.”
“Oh.” He felt a little bashful to admit it. “Digger. Dig, for short. I used it because many of my online friends used to poke fun at the lighthearted digs I’d give everyone while they were playing online with me. Dig just seemed to stick.”
“And it goes with the archaeology thing,” she pointed out.
“Too bad Dig is lost and most people call me Dick instead, now.” He screwed up his mouth in disappointment, but Amiratsked.
“I’d like to see that lighthearted side of you,” Amira teased. “You have a reputation for such seriousness. I’ve never heard of you being a jokester. I mean I guess there’s not a whole lot of room for that when you’re the big guy in charge.”
“Yeah. You really get me. You have a talent for reading people.” He let out a sigh as he rested his chin on his knuckle. And damn it, that was probably the stupidest thing he could have done. He must have looked like a school-aged kid with puppy-dog eyes to her.
“I’m not so sure,” she replied.
He furrowed his brows in response. Why was she second-guessing her talents? “I’m serious about this. You are great at understanding others.”
She smiled, but the smile didn’t seem to reach her eyes. She finally said, “I don’t know that it’s a talent of mine, as much as it’s the fact that you don’t often have people around you who want to know you. It can’t be a secret to you that people at work have a hard time understanding you.”
