“What’d you say?” he asked.
I cleared my throat. “I said thank you,” I tried again, a little louder. “You know. For helping me to live.” Oh, that didn’t sound overtly dramatic. Like at all. “Erm. What I meant to say was, you were pretty fast there. You know, with your hands.” Oh great. Now you’re calling him a whore. “Er. What I meant to say was you have chocolate eyes.” Shut up! Shut up! “And do you know what anal sex and spinach have in common?” For the love of God, close your fucking mouth!
I closed my mouth.
He stared at me.
I took a step back and he dropped his hand. I wondered if I should inhale more spinach so I could actually choke to death so I’d be put out of my misery. It would be so much easier than standing here in front of him and having him think I was bursting from my cocoon as a mentally disabled giraffe. I turned to pick up my phone and wallet, wanting to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t believe it’d gotten this far. I felt punchy and maybe my eyes burned a bit. I didn’t know. I just wanted to leave.
“Paul,” Vince said, his voice kind.
“What?” I grumbled.
“Where you going?”
“Back to work. I have work to do.”
“Wanna have lunch with me?”
I would have your babies if you asked. “I’m kind of busy.” That, and the fact that I suddenly couldn’t get the image out of my head of that twinkie Eric grinding up against him or of Bear Dude grabbing a handful of his ass and Vince seeming to enjoy it while I hid in the shadows of my tower.
“Paul,” he tried again.
“What?” I snapped at him. I was way outside my comfort zone. I didn’t talk well with people I didn’t know, and even worse, hot guys I didn’t know. I felt awkward, and I’d already made an ass out of myself in front of him. In addition, my best friend had queened out and basically threatened to disembowel him if he hurt me, like we were dating or something. Talk about embarrassing. He probably feels sorry for me and wants to make me his project.
He looked kind of glum. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, almost pouting. He saw me watching and unbelievably, stuck out his bottom lip and sighed forlornly, playing the hurt up so well that H
elena would have been proud.
“Oh, no,” I told him. “You don’t get to do stuff like that, looking the way you do. That’s not fair.”
He grinned. Dimples returned. I wanted to poke them. “And how do I look?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to feed your ego. Your obvious narcissism looks good enough for the both of us.”
“My what?” he asked, his smile never fading, but a look of confusion coming over his eyes.
“Never mind,” I muttered.
“You know,” he said, turning serious, “there’s a saying that once you save someone’s life, that you’re responsible for it. It’s an old… African chant.”
I gaped at him. “African?”
He nodded. “From Africa.”
“That’s a Chinese proverb. Not an African chant.”
“What’s Chinese?” he asked, further confused.
“What you said about saving someone’s life. That’s Chinese.”
He shrugged. “I don’t speak Asian. I want to go there, though. One day.”
“To Asia?”
He nodded.
“Where in Asia?”