Set those aside and unfold the white paper napkin to lay across my knee.
There.
Now I don’t feel so impolite.
It doesn’t take long for the server to return with the waters and the cappuccinos before going back into the kitchen and returning with the food.
Excellent. I’m starving.
Jack immediately plows into the sausage, using his fork to stab two and then jam them in his mouth, tearing off the ends like a savage. He holds out his fork in my direction.
“You wanna bite?”
“Um. No thanks.” I laugh—actually laugh, because he looks hopeful for some reason. Like a cat bringing home a mouse, he wants to feed me.
I don’t even know you, pal. Slow your roll with the gestures.
Is he always like this?
So giving?
So…
Kind?
I’m not trying to be skeptical of someone who seems nice, but it’s strange. Foreign.
New.
Guys aren’t normally like this—not the ones I’ve been out with…not that that list is long.
I gingerly pick up my breakfast wrap and take a bite off one end, careful not to tip it in a way that has the eggs, peppers, and mushrooms falling out the other side. I hate when that happens. Hate having to put the thing back together when all I’m trying to do is enjoy it. Ha ha.
“How is it?” Jack asks curiously.
I’ve barely taken one bite. “So far so good.”
“Do you mind if I have a bite?”
He wants a bite? “We’re sharing food now?”
I don’t even know him.
Not really.
I know his name, I know he has a British accent, and I know he wanted to watch a Marvel show with me last night instead of banging my beautiful roommate.
Interesting to say the least.
“I won’t like, eat the whole thing. Just a bite.” He holds up a hand. “Promise.”
“Uh—I’m not worried you’re going to eat the entire thing. I’m…worried about germs, you weirdo.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Everyone has germs.”
“Okay, right, but mine won’t give you gonorrhea or anything.”
Oh my god.
“Giving you a bite would be like sharing a toothbrush.”
“I’d share my toothbrush with you,” he informs me, holding out a sausage for my perusal—as if that serves as an explanation or justification.
“I would never share a toothbrush with you, either.” He needs to stop staring at my breakfast wrap with that look in his eye.
“Why not?”
I bite into my food, rolling my eyes. “We’re not actually having this conversation right now, are we?”
“Sure, but only because you’re being difficult.”
I wipe the side of my mouth with the napkin—procured from my lap—and chew.
“Listen, why don’t we flag the server down and order you your own. You’re obviously still hungry.”
The sausages are gone.
“I don’t want an entire wrap, I just want a bite. Or two.”
“Oh, now you want two?”
His wide shoulders rise then fall. “I’m hungry.”
I don’t dare set this wrap down on my plate and leave it unattended; the way he’s watching it now—like a hawk—leads me to believe he’d snatch it from under me and devour it without my permission.
“Clearly.” I look at him again with a raised brow. “You know, I came here to work.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” he says sociably, pleasant smile pasted on his handsome face.
He hasn’t shaved this morning, whiskers peppering his skin in an attractive way. Call me crazy, but I love a man with a five o’clock shadow.
I clear my throat. “There is no way I’m putting this down so I can start drawing. I don’t trust you.”
“Don’t trust me? I’m not doing anything!” He sounds positively affronted.
“Yet.”
“You don’t want to give me a bite. I’m a big boy—I can handle the rejection.”
“I’m not rejecting you. I just don’t want your germs all over my breakfast.”
Jack scoffs loudly. “I barely have any saliva in my mouth. It’s not like I’m a walking Petri dish.”
That makes me laugh, and I almost give in.
Almost.
“Jack, just order yourself one and stop staring at mine. It’s not going to happen for you today.”
“I won’t eat it. I just want the one bite—why are you being so difficult?”
“Why are you being so difficult?”
“Would you stop repeating everything I say?”
“I’m not the one repeating everything you say. You’re the one repeating everything I say.”
Duh.
He screws up his face. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
I raise the wrap to my mouth and take another bite, disappointed that it’s already begun to get cold. I’m not eating it fast enough, and now I’m losing my appetite.
I eyeball his scones but don’t dare take one.
Unfortunately, he notices me noticing.
“Trade you?” He holds his out, the one he’s been gnawing on this entire time we’ve been talking.
“I do not want your soggy, half-eaten scone.” It’s hard not to laugh at him, but I manage.
Barely.
“Soggy?” Jack inspects his baked good with a scrupulous eye. “No it’s not.”
If he starts in again with his spiel about saliva, I will lose it. Absolutely die laughing.
Jack drops the blueberry nugget to his plate unceremoniously. Dejectedly. “You won’t share your burrito, you don’t share your toothbrush, you don’t want a bite of my scone.” His sigh is defeated. “What do you share?”