Page 12 of Truth Be Told
I shift my purse further up on my shoulder. “Well,” I say, “I’d better be going. But I did want to say thank you.”
“Thank you?” he asks with genuine confusion.
I don’t respond. What does he mean, questioning my thank you? “Yeah. You know, for what you did for me last night.”
He raises a brow. The smallest smile plays at the corner of his lips. “What did I do for you?”
Ah, I see it now. He’s messing with me. He’s trying to get me to come out and say more, to expand on my thank you. He’s milking it because he loves this.
My breath escapes me in a single laugh. “I’m serious. You helped me. I mean, who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t come over when you did.”
He nods, this time in all seriousness. “You’ve got a dangerous job here. Those guys were no good.”
“Yeah, well. Hopefully this is only temporary.” The last thing I want to do is gush on and on about my work. “What do you do?” I mentally shake my head.So you ask abouthiswork? Really, Stella?I know my love life has been in a bit of a rut, but I work with men for a living. Icharmmen for a living. I should be better than this. But there’s something about being in his presence that makes me lose sight of myself.
He’s still wearing the faintest of play on his lips when Tanya returns yet again.
“I’m about to be out of here, Stella,” she says with a sigh. Now, her tone is less than amused. She’s done.
“Okay,” I answer quickly. “Look,” I return to him and gesture to the coat still dangling in his grip, “I’m just glad I could get that back to you, and thank you. Really.” I’m talking fast so I can get out of here and not create and bad blood between Tanya and me; so fast I don’t notice that he looks like he wants to speak. “Maybe we can finish this some other time. Will you be here again tomorrow?”
He laughs a nice laugh, a strong and controlled one with smallest toss of his head. He holds the door open for me, as I slip past him I take note of his strong, muscular forearms.
I don’t realize until this moment what I just implied with my words: that I think he’s got the makings of a creepy, lone regular. “No, I didn’t mean–”
“I know what you meant,” he says. “But no, I won’t be here again tomorrow. I have no plans to come back, actually.” He takes a look around as though he’s saying goodbye to the place.
“Why’s that?”
The door closes behind us, and Tanya locks it up. We’re making our way into the parking lot. His black BMW, the same one I saw speeding away, sits alone with my car. Tanya’s was parked next to mine, but she’s already getting the hell out of here. She gives us a last goodbye as she hurries by, and I wave as she drives away.
He shrugs. “It doesn’t fit me.”
“So what, were you just trying it on for size?”
“Something like that.”
When we arrive at my car, I pull my keys out of my bag, and when the beep sounds to signal it’s unlocked, he reaches in front of me and pulls it open.
My hand lightly brushes his when I take control of the door. He feels the same, and the memories of holding his hand the other night come flooding back. From where I’m standing, I can see the softness of those hands, and all it takes is a little bit of memory to imagine their warmth.
In the middle of our exchange of glances, he lifts a finger and lightly touches it to my hand. Then, as quickly as it began, he pulls away as though it never happened.
“Do you want to get out of here?” I say. “…With me?” I add quickly, so he doesn’t get the wrong impression about me, “I’m not sure what’s open now, but we can probably get a drink somewhere.”
He’s going to say no. I’m sure of it. He’s not interested in me like that, or he’s got someone else going on. I read him all wrong.
“Never mind,” I say, looking away and sticking one leg into the car. I try to close the door, but he stops me, that powerful grip of his now as forceful as I imagined it to be.
“Yeah. I do.”
“You saved my life and I don’t even know your name,” I say from the passenger seat of his car. We took his because he offered, and my car was almost out of gas. I stretch the seat belt across my body and buckle it into place.
“I doubt I saved your life.”
“Sure you did. Give yourself some credit.”
He holds the steering wheel with one hand. “I’d say you seem pretty resilient. You look like a girl who can handle herself. And there were a bunch of people around. If it came down to it, I bet you would have been fine.”
