Page 46 of Prelude To You

Yet here I was barefoot, high, not quite in control of my actions and not caring even one little bit. Stranger leaned against the back of a cast iron bench, arms folded, legs crossed, his gaze traveling lazily from my head to my bare feet and back again.

He was impeccably dressed, his bespoke suit fitting like a second skin. He wore a crisp white dress shirt, just like last night, and no tie. The top two buttons on his shirt were undone. Formal yet casual. And my God, so unbelievably handsome.

Before I knew it he was wiping my feet and easing them into my shoes. I touched his shoulder to thank him. I was high, but I wasn’t a barbarian. “Thank you for putting my shoes on.”

As he stretched out again, our gazes locked. “You’re very welcome.”

“Two handkerchiefs down for the count,” I said to distract myself from his touch setting my insides ablaze. “And all because you keep having to clean me up.”

“The risks a gentleman has to suffer,” he said.

He stepped back a foot or two. “I hope this is not too forward of me, but what are you doing here?” he asked, and it could have been my imagination but a somber mood invaded the space. There was an intensity in his look that almost sobered me up. Almost.

This wasn’t going well at all.

“That’s where the story comes in,” I told him, and you’re not going to believe this…” I could feel myself swaying on my heels. He slipped his hand around my waist, presumably to support me, and there was no stopping the tremble waltzing up and down my spine like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

“Try me,” he suggested, his long fingers clenching my waist even tighter.

I almost lost my train of thought. “So here’s the thing,” I said. “Meg found your black card in my bag…”

“Oh, the black card, right,” he said, and suddenly all the intensity vanished from his demeanor. In fact he looked relieved, which puzzled me.

“The black card you dropped last night in the bookshop,” I continued. “Some auction thing…”

By now the strange fascination with me had returned to his gaze. “Yes, I know.”

Anyway, Meg found it in my bag and said I should go to the auction to see you again and I said no no no no definitely not I’m not going but then I realized at the very least I should thank you for my fabulous French pastry book…”

There was no taking backthatonslaught of words, but I really needed to explain everything to him in the most excruciating detail possible. It had to be the goddamn pills.

A frown, underscored by a bemused grin, marred his otherwise perfect face. “That’s an extremely nice thought for you to come here and thank me, and it was also my pleasure to get you that book,” he said gallantly.

“Yes, there’s a recipe for an ancientchouxpastry I’m going to try this week for my co-workers.”

He didn’t seem particularly interested in my baking adventures. How was this man not excited about the fact that I could whip up my own butter the old-fashioned way? But he did have something else on his mind. “Who is Meg, if I may be so bold to ask?”

“My roommate,” I said. “We share an apartment.”

His curiosity about my life was a little baffling. “Oh, I see,” he said.

“She’s also my best friend.”

Stellar conversation.I was definitely bringing my best game. Maybe I should tell him about the time Meg and I were nine and stole that little bitch Tiffany’s Halloween candy because she called us losers for still having flip phones.

The way this man looked at me made my stomach twist into a knot and my cheeks turn red hot. There was no drug euphoria in the world strong enough to lessen the embarrassment gushing through me now.

Since saving any scrap of dignity had moved down the list of things that seemed possible to accomplish, now all I wanted to do was go home, dive under my bed covers and not emerge for at least a week. I might have wobbled again but guess who was there to steady me.Again.

“You’re not okay,” he said, his hand still on my waist.

And even if this was the moment to bring this all to a dignified-ish conclusion, I decided there was no better time to push on. “Okay, so Meg ordered pizza with a lot of garlic on it—"

“Ah, Meg again…”

“And I only had one slice but I thought ugh, garlic breath, and she had a box of Tic Tacs in her makeup drawer but they weren’t really Tic Tacs but some feel-happy drug—”

“You took drugs… Well, that clears everything up nicely.”

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