Page 40 of Off Camera
THIRTEEN
REID
I can’t stop lookingat Avery.
She has a drop of red enchilada sauce on her chin right under the curve of her cheek, and I’m tempted to lick it away.
It’s as distracting as the pretty yellow ribbon she has tied in her dark hair. I don’t know if I want to leave it in place or find another use for it.
Probably the latter.
“Not a total failure of a night.” She wipes her hands with a napkin and adds it to the pile on the coffee table. “A solid eight out of ten.”
“That’s almost a C,” I say. “What are my areas of improvement?”
“They’re all things out of your control. Fire alarms. Smoking chicken. The flames that were coming out of the oven. Good call with the extinguisher, by the way.”
“Those are all things in my control.” I turn and face her on the couch. “I think I’m screwed.”
“The cookies might bring you up to a nine,” she says.
“I’ve always been a fan of finishing strong.”
I wonder what I’m supposed to do next.
Kiss her?
Invite her to spend the night?
Drag her back to my bedroom and ask her to readPlanetary: Volume 1naked and on top of me?
Christ.
Why don’t they make manuals about how to handle situations like this?
“Are you okay?” Avery asks, and I reach for my glass of water.
“Wonderful,” I say, finishing the drink in two sips. “How’s the work week looking?”
“Not bad. I was asked to do a presentation for some people, and I feel a little silly they think I’m qualified for the job.” She drags her finger through the sauce on her chin then sucks it clean. It’s embarrassing to admit my cock twitches. “It’s weird to consider myself successful, and it’s even weirder that other people look up to me and try to emulate what I do to be successful too.”
I frown. “Someone told you that what you do is meaningless, didn’t they?”
Avery blinks. She wrings her hands together and touches her necklace. “What makes you say that?”
“Because I used to do the same thing when I talked about my dad.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor behind it. It’s jagged and sharp. An obvious deflection tactic that’s probably worked on people in the past. I know there’s more to the story, but I don’t push her to tell me.
“It’s not really a second date conversation,” she says. “It’s more like a tenth or twelfth or twentieth date conversation.”
I nod, understanding. “We don’t have to have the conversation at all. I just want you to know you’re not alone.”
She blinks and looks at me like I have four heads. Her jaw works and her hair curtains her face, hiding it from view.
“I have an ex,” she says. “He works in the same industry as me but in a different role. A role of power. When I started to make a name for myself, he started to pull back in our relationship. There were off-handed comments I was able to ignore. I brushed them off and made excuses for him, but it kept escalating.”
I scoot closer to her. “What happened?”
