City Love(50)

D smiles when he sees me. I love how he has this intense laser focus when he smiles at me. I’ve seen him smile at other people and the laser focus definitely isn’t there. When he smiles at me, you can totally see the difference.

D stands up and kisses me on the cheek. “It’s good to see you,” he says.

“You, too.” Clips of the fantasies I’ve been imagining in bed flash behind my eyes. My face burns. I’m too embarrassed to look at D, so I fidget with my bag, then hide behind a menu. Not that there’s any way he can tell what I’m thinking. Or that I’ve been thinking way more about him than I should. But I’m embarrassed anyway.

“Who were you in high school?” I ask D after we order and I can look at him again.

“What do you mean?”

“Were you a popular jock? A nerdy brainiac? An artistic nonconformist?”

“Who do you think I was?”

“Pretty much the same person you are now.”

“How would you describe me?”

“Oh, you know. Just the typical confident, driven boy who can pull off being both intelligent and socially skilled. Who isn’t that well-rounded?”

D reaches across the tiny café table. He covers my hands with his. “You’re too generous. But I like it.”

And I like Donovan Clark.

I can’t deny my feelings anymore. I can’t keep fighting our attraction. Sitting with him in this charming café, the sweet smell of brown sugar in the air, our legs touching under the table making every cell in my body hum, I can almost see my resistance breaking down in chips and shards.

I’m falling for this man and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Who were you back in Chicago?” D asks.

“The same person I am now,” I say, although I’m not being entirely accurate. He doesn’t need to know about the plan to reinvent myself. Part of having a fresh start comes with the opportunity to be the best version of yourself. This shiny new version of me is the only version D needs to know.

D smiles with so much warmth in his eyes my heart swells. “You mean the altruistic, brilliant girl who has no idea how beautiful she is?”

My face gets warm again. I press my lips together, trying not to smile.

“Yeah,” D says. “I thought so. You went to public school?”

I nod. What a joke to think my family could afford private school. One more thing D doesn’t need to know about me. A loud surge of grinding coffee beans accentuates this point.

“You’re lucky,” he says. “Private school can be insane. Especially in Manhattan. I went to Dalton. They don’t let you get away with anything there.”

“So you were a bad boy?”

“More like a typical boy. I had a problem with the amount of homework I was slammed with every night. My teachers weren’t exactly sympathetic when I tried to explain that each of them assigning two hours of homework a night meant that kids had to stay up until three in the morning to get everything done. My main argument was that sleep deprivation is inhumane.”

“You told your teachers that?”

“Every one of them.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t make a bit of difference. They still got their panties in a bunch when I didn’t do my homework.”

“How did you get into Columbia if you were a slacker?”

“My grades were good. And the Ivies like extracurriculars. I ran track, I was on yearbook and in chess club and—”

“I’m sorry. Did you say you were in chess club?”

“Proud member of Pawn Stars.”

“You just became a hundred times cooler.”

“Nerdy equals cool in your book?”

“Definitely.”

“I knew you were the right girl for me.”

I shift in my chair. Does that mean he wants to get serious with me? Is that where this is going?

“Anyway,” D continues. “Teachers constantly up in my business calling my mom every time I got an incomplete on homework pissed me off at the time. But now I’m thankful I had good teachers who whipped my ass into shape.” He laughs. “Never thought I’d be saying that I had good teachers. Guess that’s the kind of perspective you can only gain three years after graduating.”

Three years. It’s been three years since D was in high school.

The coffee grinder erupts again with a staccato beat. The aroma of fresh coffee beans wafts over to us. The lights dim a bit.

“Did the lights just get dimmer?” I ask.

“Some places do that as it gets later. I know a few restaurants that dim the lights in stages every hour. Way to create ambiance, right?”

“I like it.”

D reaches across the table to stroke my cheek delicately. Tingles run down the back of my neck.

“I like this,” he says.

“You like the Snickers cheesecake,” I point out, glancing at his empty plate.

“Didn’t like that at all.”

“How did you find this place?”

“I used to come here all the time. My parents’ brownstone is a few blocks away. We can walk past it on our way to the park if you want.”

“Yeah. I want to see where you grew up.”