“Lecture! I need to stand in front of people, some of which could be my grandparents, and have them take me seriously.” She sighs in resignation. “This may not be a great look, but it works.”
“It most definitely does not work.” I take a sip and look at her pointedly. “I bet you have a rocking body underneath all those oversized clothes.” That statement earns me a dirty look, and I cringe. “That was extremely sexist, wasn’t it?”
Zoe just raises an eyebrow and points at her beer, signaling I should order her another round. She’s on her third, and for all her small stature, she doesn’t seem the least bit affected; the girl is not a lightweight, and I have to admit I’m impressed.
“I am so sorry.” I catch the bartender’s eye, signaling another round. “I swear I’m not a pig.”
“Just an ass?” She cocks her head to the side and crosses her arms over her breasts.
“Oh yeah, definitely an ass.” I laugh, but even I can hear the awkwardness in it. “I’m usually much better at this.”
Zoe leans forward and places her hand on my knee, sending a flash of warmth traveling up my thigh, spreading to my stomach and redirecting my blood flow south.
“Piece of advice. You’re going to have to start dishing out some real compliments if you ever want to find out what’s under all these oversized clothes.Babe.”
I can’t help but burst out into laughter again. In the last few hours, I’ve laughed as much as I have in all the past month put together. Maybe even two. “Okay, fair enough,” I concede. “When I think of one, I’ll be sure todish it out.”
She swats my knee and leans back in her chair smiling, taking a sip from the fresh pint set for her on the bar then distractedly licking her curvy upper lip from beer foam, a gesture I find extremely alluring if only because it’s very obviously not intended to be sexy.
Zoe has no façade about her, something I like more and more as I spend time with her. The showy girls are easy to lose interest in as fast as I find it, but Zoe’s openness is intriguing, irritably so as I’m drawn to her like I’m an asteroid sucked in by her orbit, about to have a colossal collision.
Though I’m getting a distinct feeling, she really just wants one thing from me, or she wouldn’t still be here.
I want her, more than I thought I would, but there’s something about Zoe that makes me want to just spend time with her, keep sitting at the bar and talking to her, which is surprisingly easy.
That feeling scares me, so I decide I’m not going to pursue her. I’ll enjoy her company for the evening, and we’ll go our separate ways, so I might as well make the most of the time I have left and loosen up, let myself forget the real world and have some fun.
We keep playing our game of Twenty Questions, and I manage to avoid any more idiotic slipups as we laugh and talk so easily that I don’t notice the time. My phone pings with an incoming message and I glance at the screen.
“Oh, shit, it’s almost midnight.” I jump up from my barstool and pull out my wallet. “I have to be at work early tomorrow. I don’t usually work Friday’s, but one of the guys on rotation came down with the flu, and I can always use the spare cash, so I offered to fill in.” It’s a handy excuse, but I still feel a pang of disappointment that my time with Zoe is coming to an end.
“At Lenny’s auto shop, the one you were telling me about?”
“Yep.”
“You like it there?”
“I do. Lenny took me in when I was fifteen, taught me everything I know about cars. I love the place.” I help Zoe into her coat. “Seeing something that I helped fix with my own two hands working smoothly is one of the most satisfying things in the world.”
“Fifteen, that’s young.”
I berate myself for the slip. This is exactly why I can’t take things further than one fun date at the bar; she distracts me, and I let out information that leads to questions I don’t want to answer.
“I was a natural, figured I’d learn the trade early.” That’s not even an embellished version of the truth, it’s more like a three-quarter-lie.
“Is that why you’re taking engineering classes?” She nods a thanks to the bartender as I hold the door open for her and we exit into the cold night air, starting to make our way to the parking lot. “Because you want to build something of your own one day?”
“It never really occurred to me to create something,” I admit after a long pause. “I’m trying to learn the foundations for running a business. Lenny’s grooming me to take over when he retires, buy the shop off him. His kids aren’t interested and seem thrilled he has someone he trusts and likes to continue his legacy. I guess it takes the pressure off them. And engineering interests me, enriches me in my field of work, but if I’m being completely honest, I really just want to have a degree, graduating from college is just… It’s sort of on the bucket list.”
Zoe smiles.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I give her a don’t BS me look.
“It’s nice to meet someone who wants something for the personal sense of accomplishment, and not only for how it will advance him or look on his resume, and—oh my God are you blushing?”