The Hot One(25)

She greets me with a smile. “Hi.”

We walk through the bar.

“Ladies first.” I gesture to the small, circular booth at the back of the Lucky Spot bar. A low white candle in the middle of the table flickers, casting a faint glow across the wood.

Delaney slides in first and I follow her.

Questions ping-pong in my head. How close can I sit to her? Do I launch right into the catch-up banter? Or dive into those-were-the-days chitchat that reminds her of how good we were together? Do I tell her when I saw her last weekend it stirred up something inside me? And I don’t just mean the physical. Seeing her was a knockout blow I didn’t see coming.

Clay might say it ignited regret. But I see it more as a storm of possibilities and “what ifs.” Perhaps the biggest one is this—what if I hadn’t followed Professor Blair’s advice at the end of college?

I shake off the thoughts that have been plaguing me all day.

Delaney’s here. I’m here. Time to treat this night like a first date, not a stroll down memory lane.

I’m dressed for a first date—jeans, a button-down shirt, the cuffs rolled up to my forearms. Delaney wears a pair of jeans that do nothing but stoke my desire to stare at her ass all night, but that’s not possible since we’re sitting. A black sleeveless top affords a lovely hint of cleavage, and that same turtle charm I spotted earlier glints in the soft blue lighting.

“So,” I begin, clearing my throat as I rub my palms against my thighs. I’m fucking nervous. This is not acceptable. Yesterday, I stood naked in front of her, and tonight I’m dressed, yet at a loss for meaningful words. “How are you?”

“Good,” she says, taking her time. “How are you?”

Stupid. Nervous. Ready to kick myself.

“Great. Totally great. How was your day?” I ask, and yep, I’m going to bitch-slap my own face in front of the mirror.

This is so not me. I need to get my shit together right now.

“I had a great day. Work was crazy busy.”

That’s a perfect opening to make a joke about yesterday, and what kept her crazy busy in the morning, emphasis on crazy.

But for some dumbass reason, I say, “Your shoes are nice.”

Can I just smack myself now? Because what in the fuckity fuck was that?

She smiles, and seeing her lips curve up makes my heart beat faster. “Thank you. I got them after work yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?” I sit up straighter. Her shopping habits are a most excellent sign.

She nods. “And I only had to go to one store. Amazingly, they had these shoes in my size.” She casts her gaze downward. “Me and my big feet.”

“Hey, I always liked your big feet,” I say, and inside I wipe my hand across my forehead because just maybe I can pull out of this conversational nosedive.

She lifts her face. “Thanks.”

C’mon, man. Pull up on the stick before this plane crashes and burns.

Okay, she likes shoes. Shoes are sexy. I’ll stick with footwear. But for some reason, the words out of my mouth are about the least sexy part of them. “Did they have those little packets in the shoebox?”

Nice one, dickhead.

She furrows her brow. “Silica gel, you mean? Those packets?”

I’ve got to sell this to the jury like I meant to bring up fucking silica gel. Like it’s the most fascinating subject in the universe. “The ones that say ‘Do not eat.’”

She shoots me a look that says why on earth are you asking me this question. “Yes. There was one in the box for these red shoes, in fact,” she says slowly, like she’s talking to someone who needs extra time to understand speech.

But I don’t try to stop the slide into awkward. Instead, I embrace the weirdness. I dive into it, roll around in it, embrace it. “Were you tempted to nibble on it?”

She laughs lightly, and that sound tells me my bizarre topic has leveled out the plane in spite of myself. “Well, if they didn’t have that warning, surely I would have.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. We’re getting into the swing of things. “How do you think the silica gel makers started those warnings? Let’s be frank here.” I stab my finger on the table like I’m making a serious point in court. “Somebody must have tried to eat one in order to get that warning.”

She narrows her eyes. “Probably the same person who started ripping tags off mattresses.”

I slam a palm on the table. “It’s horrible to think some scofflaw is going around tearing off tags on mattresses.”

“Hey there!”

I turn toward the upbeat voice. The waitress has materialized at our table like she’s arrived magically in a cloud of smoke. I didn’t even see her coming. She’s young, maybe twenty-two, and she bounces on her toes, making her black ponytail swing back and forth.

“Hello there,” Delaney says with a smile.

“How is everyone doing tonight?”

“Grand,” I answer, then wink at Delaney. “Just grand.”

“Grander,” Delaney says, weighing in, too.

Whatever nerves or worries I had before are officially squashed. They’ve gone sayonara, and I couldn’t be happier to see them skedaddle.

“Excellent,” the chipper waitress says as she slides an orange ceramic bowl to the middle of the table. “These are mustard-dusted pretzels and honey-roasted nuts to get you started.”