Come As You Are(27)

Her expression softens. A faint smile tugs at her mouth. “You too,” she whispers, and for a moment, I can see how this night would have unspooled. A drink, a conversation, a laugh. The laughter would have led to kissing, the kissing would have led to stumbling out of here, hailing a cab, making out as the city blurred by, then a hot, sweaty night at my place that went by far too fast.

That can’t happen anymore, yet the promise of a night like that is powerful. I tap the bar, drumming my fingers as I soak in the ambiance of this quirky joint. “I’m not surprised you like this place. I bet you had a dollhouse when you were younger.”

A faint smile plays on her lips. Those lush, sweet lips. “That’s how I learned to sew. For dolls.”

I laugh, wishing this conversation was the prelude to our evening. “Yep. Pegged it.”

“The first time I took needle to thread, I made a terrible frock for a four-inch-high blond toy woman.” She dips her hand into her purse, and fishes around. She grabs a swath of fabric and holds out her hand to show me a green paisley triangle. “Here it is. I keep it with me, like a good-luck charm.”

“That is awful, and I say this as someone who made his first robot out of cardboard, so it was equally abysmal.”

Tucking the dress away, she asks, “Do you make better robots now?”

I shake my head. “I gave up the robot trade in high school. Decided to make radios instead.”

She studies me. “Funny, I would have pegged you for model toys, airplanes, and RC cars.”

I bring my hand to my heart, pretending to look affronted. “I’m offended that you don’t realize I’m weirdly practical. I have no interest in things that don’t do . . . anything. But I do love the radio.”

“Do you have your own radio?”

“Of course. Built it from old parts. Listen to it at night. Works like a charm.”

She shrugs playfully. “Maybe you can tune in to little green men on it.”

I wiggle my eyebrows. “One can hope.”

Hope. Just like a sad part of me is hoping this night can keep ticking along in the direction of paisley dresses, cardboard robots, little green men, and cabs hailed hastily. I want to turn on the radio, then turn her on, as sultry music plays and moonlight streams in through the penthouse windows.

She laughs as she lifts her yellow teacup and takes a drink of her beverage. But when she sets it down, a lightning bolt of anger flashes across her eyes. “Wait,” she whispers sharply, and there goes the hope. “Did you know I was going to be covering you? Did Mr. Galloway tell you first?”

I wrench back, getting out of the way of her ambush. “Are you crazy?” I slash a hand through the air in certain denial. The interlude is over. Officially. “I had no idea who you were. I had no clue you were working on a story on me.”

“I was literally just assigned the piece today. My editor told me you knew about it,” she says with narrowed eyes, as if she’s trying to catch me in a fib.

“And you think that means I knew who you were at the party?”

“Maybe you were feeling me out. Trying to get a sense of what I was like.”

I scoff. “Angel, I’m not that nefarious nor so desperate that I need to conduct recon for a magazine article I agreed to do. And I don’t need to sleep with a reporter to try to sway her view of me.”

“Then why did you say you were a VC last night? See? You were trying to throw me off then. I thought you were a venture capitalist. Were you just saying that so I wouldn’t know who you were?”

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t say it. You assumed it.”

“And you didn’t correct. Why?”

I sigh, rubbing a hand across my neck. “Because I didn’t want you to know who I was. Because we were role-playing. Because it was part of the game. I thought you liked the game.”

“I did,” she says, her tone vulnerable once again. “But why didn’t you want me to know who you were?”

“Because I wanted you to like me for me.”

She exhales deeply. “I guess I wanted the same.” She holds up a finger, a sign she has to ask another question. “But if you didn’t know who I was last night, if you truly didn’t know it was me, how did you recognize me as the girl from last night when you came in?”

I furrow my brow as the bartender brings me a pink teacup. It’s a frilly-looking porcelain cup, meant for proper ladies sipping tea. I swear this drink better be as strong as steel.

“This ought to do the trick,” he says, then whispers, tequila.

I thank him and swallow a thirsty gulp of the fiery liquor from the prissy cup. The burn intensifies as it goes down, then it spreads through my lungs. I draw a deep breath, and when that cuts-like-a-knife sensation starts to fade, I say, “Seriously, Angel? Is that a serious question? You think I’d only recognize you if I had planned in advance to seduce the reporter assigned to cover me?”

She lifts her chin, nodding, as if she believes that line of bullshit.

I lean closer to her, raise a hand, and finger a curl of her hair. Her breath catches. “Angel, I recognized you because you’re wearing polka dots, because you said you make your clothes and something about polka dots seems uniquely you and uniquely DIY. I recognized you because your hair is the same gorgeous shade, because I had my lips on your face, on your earlobe, on these pink lips.” A shudder moves through her as I go on. “I knew your voice because it was the same husky, sexy voice that the woman used last night when she begged me to fuck her against a wall. To fuck her hard.” A tremble is her answer. “I knew it was you because you match my mystery girl, and you smell as delicious as she did.” I move back, letting my words linger. “But perhaps I didn’t make a memorable enough impression.”