Page 27 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“No!This.” I gestured more emphatically. “The dimples, the leather, those big, strong hands—” I stopped abruptly.
His smile widened. “You don’t have much of a filter, do you?”
My cheeks burned and I looked down into my latte.
Eric laughed and leaned over to touch my leg again. “I’m teasing. But it’s true, I really don’t go on a lot of dates. My job keeps me busy.”
Trying to salvage the situation, I looked back up at him. “What do you do?”
He shrugged broad shoulders under his leather jacket. “I’m a financial consultant. It’s not very interesting, to be honest. I advise people how to acquire more of other people’s money.” Giving me a crooked smile, he added, “Amira told me you work for a bank?”
“Yeah. It’s also not very interesting. Certainly not the glamorous job I’d imagined when I moved here.”
“From where?”
“Ohio.”
“Do you go back often?”
“That’s where my family is, so, no.”
His gaze was sympathetic, but all he said was “I’m sorry.” I met his eyes and then looked away, feeling unaccountably exposed. “So,” he went on, “I’m guessing you moved to the city to make a new life for yourself. How’s that working out for you?”
“It has its ups and downs. Though meeting Amira was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I’d be lost without her.”
“How long have you known her?”
I thought about it. “Almost three years now. She was looking for a roommate, and here we are.”
Eric smiled at me. “Well, I think meeting Amira was one of the best things to happen to me, too. Because here we are.”
Blushing again, I stared down into my latte. His flirting was definitely not subtle, and I had no idea what to do with it. I cleared my throat a couple of times, opened my mouth to say something, andthen closed it again as he leaned forward and shrugged out of his jacket. The black tee underneath was nothing special, but it molded itself to his shoulders and chest and upper arms just enough to become extremely distracting.
“Amira told me you have all the muscles,” I said dreamily. Then my eyes widened as I realized I’d said that out loud. “Oh my god,” I whispered in dawning horror as we stared at each other.
His laugh was warm and unaffected and made me tingle all over. “There goes that filter again,” he observed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Poof.” He mimed something exploding.
“I-I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Maybe the same thing that’s gotten into me,” he suggested, amusement fading as he watched me steadily.
Those tingles returned, focused now in my downstairs area, as I stared into his beautiful brown eyes. “What do you mean?” I asked breathlessly.
“I think you’re really cute. You wouldn’t know this, but my type is guys from Ohio who say whatever’s on their mind.”
Fireworks went off in my head as my heart pounded an ecstatic dance behind my ribs. “I think you’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen,” I told him helplessly, not so much laying my cards on the table as launching them in all directions.
His mouth curved into another smile. “I’m glad we got that out of the way. Why don’t we finish these coffees and then go for a walk?”
We wandered the tree-lined streetsof the Upper West Side for the rest of the afternoon, asking each other the inane butobligatory questions that accompany the start of every new relationship. Among other things, I learned that Eric was from San Francisco, where both sets of grandparents had settled after emigrating from South Korea, and that he hated cilantro with a deep and abiding passion. For my part, I curated my own responses carefully, since only a sociopath would be totally honest on a first date. I’d stumbled across a gorgeous man who thought I was cute, and if I had to tell a few white lies to keep him, so be it.
When I finally got back to the apartment, my face was sore from hours of continuous smiling. Amira was sitting on the sofa, watching something on the ancient TV, when I closed the door behind me and leaned back against it. A moment later the TV clicked off and she turned to stare at me with avid interest, arms crossed along the back of the sofa.
“I’ve been waitingforever,” she informed me. “How did it go?”
“I want to have his babies,” I sighed.
She clapped her hands together excitedly. “I knew it! Isn’t he great?”
