Page 44 of Up In Flames
Oren tugged his tie a bit looser and pulled it off over his head. It joined the jacket and the computer bag at the table.
“How was work? Close any loopholes today?”
“Work was annoying. One of our clients is suing for breach of contract and it should be a slam dunk case, but there’s some archaic ass law that’s still on the books and they’re using it to try and get out of the contract without paying. So it’s my job to digthrough mountains of legal cases from eons ago to try and set a precedent.”
“I’d rather fight a three-alarm fire. It sounds less tiring.”
“I’ll survive.” Oren opened the fridge. “Want anything while I’m in here?”
“A beer would be nice, thanks.”
He handed me a can of beer from a little craft brewery nearby. For himself, he cracked open an orange soda. Since the accident, he’d lost all appetite for drinking. It didn’t bother him when other people did, but I think he didn’t like feeling like he wasn’t in control. Or maybe it just brought too many ugly memories to the surface. Brains were weird like that.
“This is almost done if you want to freshen up.”
“Mmm. Good plan.” He leaned in and stole a kiss, the curve of his smile pressed against my mouth, an obvious sign of his happiness.
When Oren slipped into the bathroom, I hurried away from the stove. Quickly moving his things off the chair and setting them in the living room, I gathered the candles I’d hidden and set them up in the middle of the table. I’d prepared place settings ahead of time and pulled them out of the drawer I’d tucked them into. Everything was bundled neatly and just needed to be rolled out onto the table and straightened up.
By the time Oren came out of the bathroom, the table had been set for a romantic dinner for two, complete with a flower I’d cut from the bushes out front and stuffed in a water glass. I’d thought of everything except a vase apparently.
“What’s all this?” He looked at the table, then at me.
“It’s dinner. Have a seat and I’ll get it plated.”
We could go out to eat together, but as friends. We could sit in restaurants as friends, and I’d have to try not to look at him like I wanted to eat him instead of anything on the menu. I’dhave to be causal when everything I felt was the exact opposite of that. Intense. Eclipsing.
I grabbed the garlic bread out of the oven and arranged it on a plate. Garlic on a date was bad unless both people ate it, then it cancelled itself out. Besides, there were certain advantages to staying in, such as the availability of toothpaste.
With everything else ready to go, I served each of us a plate and sat down at the table, only to get up again and turn off the lights. The candles flickered when I sat down again. Oren had already grabbed a slice of garlic bread and dunked the crust into the sauce.
“This is nice.”
The compliment was genuine, but it still left me wishing I could give him more.
“You deserve nice.”
The corners of his eyes wrinkled when he smiled, which was another sign I knew I wasn’t completely sucking at this whole boyfriend thing. When Oren fake-smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. I’d seen him smile like that with other people, but never with me.
“Do you have a movie lined up for after?” Mischief danced in his expression.
“And if I did?”
“I’d say that I hoped it was one I’d already seen because I won’t be paying much attention to it.”
I’d never before seen someone use a fork so erotically, but Oren slid the utensil into his mouth and held my gaze as he pulled it out slowly, his gaze heavy and full of promises, a glint of amusement appearing when I shifted in my seat.
He looked like he wanted to eat me alive. I’d let him. I’d let him do anything to me, so long as it meant he kept looking at me like that. Men had admired me before. I tried not to be vain, but I knew I was fit and decent looking. Women liked me. Men liked me. But, for the first time, I felt I’d found someone who likedmore than my smile, or my job, or how I looked in a pair of jeans, or out of them.
It might have been wishful thinking, but I didn’t think so. Oren had been straight until he met me, and that knowledge did something to me. It twined around my insides like an affectionate cat winding itself around someone’s legs. All the men in the world that he’d met, and it was me he’d looked twice at. The realization filled me with an effervescent joy. When Oren looked at me, my insides felt like sunshine.
Maybe one day we could go on a proper date. We could walk down the street holding hands and kiss in the back of a theater. Eat dinner and play footsie under the table. I’d been on dates before, but to begin with it was out of obligation. You dated girls, you took them on dates. You held their hands even when it felt weird and kissed them sometimes even though that was worse. And you forgot to call them back and waited for them to break up with you.
When I got older, dates were things I went on to make my parents happy. It pleased them to think that I might find someone to settle down with. I stopped wanting to do it when I realized that I wasn’t only leading the women on, but also my parents.
But a date with Oren would be different. My chest ached with the force of wanting. It curled up next to my heart and squeezed.
“Will?” Oren’s brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”
