“I didn’t know what was behind the door waiting for me, or I would have come out.”
“A person. A person was behind the door. One who went out of her way for you. If I were a sixty-year-old married woman with blue hair, you should have come out to thank me.”
He sighed. “I’m a busy man, Soraya.”
“Yet here you are on a weeknight at only 7PM. Shouldn’t you be working until eight if you’re so busy?”
“I make exceptions when warranted.”
“How big of you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You want to look under the table, don’t you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Tell me something else about you. Aside from you’re a workaholic with a superiority complex who drinks fancy drinks. All of that, I could have guessed from my observations on the train.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No. I’m an only child.”
I mumbled under my breath. Gee, I never would have guessed that one.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“How about you?”
“One sister. But I’m not speaking to her at the moment.”
“And why is that?”
“Bad blind date.”
“She fixed you up?”
“Yep.”
“With the guy who took you to the funeral? What was his name, Dallas?”
“Aspen. No, she didn’t fix me up with Aspen. I picked that disaster all on my own. She fixed me up with a guy she used to work with. Mitch.”
“And it didn’t go well, I take it?”
I fixed him with a stare. “I nicknamed him High Pitch Mitch with the Itch.”
He got a chuckle out of that. “Doesn’t sound so good.”
“It wasn’t.”
He squinted at me. “And will I have a nickname tomorrow?”
“Would you like one?”
“Not if it’s anything like High Pitch Mitch with the Itch.”
“Well, what did you have in mind?”
The wheels spun in his head for about thirty seconds. “Morgan with the Big Organ?”
I rolled my eyes.
“You can fact check under the table at any time.” He winked.
I continued to try to get to know him, even though all roads led to between his legs. “Any pets?”
“I have a dog.”
Remembering the little dog from my snooping in his cell phone, I said, “What kind of a dog? You seem like the type to have a big scary one. Like a Great Dane or a Neapolitan mastiff. Something representative of what you keep goading me into looking at under the table. You know, big dog, big d—”
“The size of a dog is not a phallic symbol,” he interrupted.
So, it was his cute little dog in the pictures.
“Really? I think I read a study once that said men unknowingly purchase dogs that represent the true size of their penis.”
“My dog was my mother’s. She passed away when he was a puppy, twelve years ago. ”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Thank you. Blackie is a West Highland terrier.”
“Blackie? Is he black?” The little dog in the photo had been white.
“He’s white, actually.”
“So why Blackie? To be facetious? Or is there another reason for the name?”
His response was clipped. “There’s no other reason.”
Just then, the waitress served our dinner. I ordered the Bonito Shut fish entree, basically because the menu said it was for adventurous eaters only. And Graham ordered Sashimi. Both our dishes looked more like art when they arrived.
“I hate to eat it; it’s so beautiful.”
“I have the opposite problem. It’s so beautiful; I can’t wait to eat it.” His smirk told me his comment had nothing to do with his fancy looking dinner.
I shifted in my seat.
We both dug into our meals. Mine was incredible. The fish literally melted in your mouth. “Mmm…this is so good.”
Graham surprised me by reaching over and forking a piece from my plate. He didn’t seem like a plate sharer. I watched him swallow, and he gave a small nod of approval. Then I reached over and forked a piece of his meal. He smiled.
“So. You’ve told me about Mitch the Itch and Funeral boy. Do you date a lot?”
“I wouldn’t say a lot. But I’ve met my fair share of assholes.”
“They were all assholes?”