Friendly Persuasion

Tina blushed. Amazing. Tina never blushed. “It was bizarre. It started out like I planned—it’s two a.m. and I tell him my car won’t start and could he give me a ride home. He looks at me funny, but he says he’ll do it.” Tina tapped her lip with the jagged-ended celery stick.

“Then what?”

“So, I climb into his car, lean into him to free my seat belt, giving him plenty of thigh to ogle—and he ogled, all right. Good, I think, we’re getting somewhere. I’ll invite him in for thank-you coffee and we’ll see if he’s as attentive in bed as he is at the bar.

“He hardly talks in the car, but I drag out of him that he’s close to his family, and he’s taking classes to be an engineer. His eyes are so blue…. Anyway, we get to my place and I ask him to come in and you won’t believe what he says to me.” Pause. Tina was such a drama queen.

“What?”

She took a bite of celery and chewed slowly. “He says, ‘You need your sleep.’”

“What?”

“Then he says, ‘Give me your distributor cap and I’ll put it back on before you pick up the car.’ Can you believe it? He was on to me the whole time. Then he offers me a ride to work this morning.”

“Wow. What did you do?”

“I gave him the cap, but I rode in with my neighbor.”

“So, are you giving up?”

“Are you kidding? I figure he likes to make the first move. Old-fashioned, but nice. He held the door for me and walked me up to my apartment, too. A gentleman.” She sighed, then tossed the stub of celery into the trash. “I’ll just play it his way. Let him come to me.”

“Maybe he’s not your kind of guy, Tina.”

“He’s hot. That makes him my kind of guy.”

“What if he wants to get serious?”

“No guy wants to get serious. Not if he has half a chance not to. That only happens in romance novels.”

“Just be careful.”

“Ditto,” she said, looking past Kara’s shoulder. “Miguel at twelve o’clock.”

Kara whirled to find Ross leaning against the doorjamb taking a swig from a quart bottle of V8 juice.

“Ross!” she said, too bright, too nervous.

“Have fun last night, Kara?” he asked, his expression neutral. “Meet anybody?”

“I, uh, I…actually, I did.” Her heart pounded in her ears at the sight and smell of him—she could still detect Miguel’s spicy scent. It seemed weird to talk about it in front of Tina, but she needed some acknowledgment that she hadn’t been alone in the miracle of it all.

“That’s good.” Nothing flickered in Ross’s eyes. She almost despaired. Hadn’t it meant anything to him at all?

“I hope it was all that you wanted.” Then he touched her shoulder—softly, but with an intimacy that turned her to liquid. It meant something to him, all right.

“All I wanted. And more,” she said. But not too much? She wasn’t thinking about engagement rings or wedding cakes, right?

Tina snorted and looked from one to the other. Then she pointed at Kara. “You be careful. That’s all I’m going to say.” She toddled off.

“Good advice,” Ross said softly. “Surprising, coming from Tina.”

“I know. She’s getting downright maternal.”

“Are you all right?”

“Sure. Yes.” Her mouth was so dry and he was standing so close.

“I mean, you’re not smitten or anything?” He was trying to joke, but he looked at her very closely.

“Smitten? Ha,” she joked back. “You’re good, but not that good.”

“I’m not known for my modesty.”

“Evidently not. And I remember both my name and where my underwear is.” Electricity shot through her, as the image of Miguel pushing her teddy to the floor came to her. “Talking about it feels weird,” she said.

“Yeah.” Ross ran his fingers through his hair. “Hard not to, though. I can’t stop thinking about it.” His eyes flared again.

“I can’t believe that was me doing that,” she whispered, blushing madly.

“Believe it. You were hot. But I wasn’t surprised. You don’t seem to know how sexy you are.”

“Thanks.” His praise warmed her to her toes. “That was good for me, Ross. I learned a lot. Thanks.”

“And you’re sure you don’t feel the urge to offer me a sock drawer?”

“No way. You’re too much of a slob.”

“Let’s not get insulting now. I liked it better when you were worshiping at my feet.”

“Pul-eeze,” she said, shoving him playfully out of her way. “Back to work, Mr. Love Meister.”

Relief filled Kara. She and Ross had had amazing sex and they were still the same joky, easy friends they’d been the day before. Later that day, feeling jaunty, she slipped a check under a straightedge on Ross’s drafting table to pay for half the hotel room.

Except when she returned to her desk after a Dairy Arizona meeting, she found the check on her desk torn in half with a Post-it note that said, My pleasure…Miguel. Lust washed through her and her legs turned to boiled pasta.

Ah, Miguel.

At home that night, Kara felt terrible—alive with itching. She couldn’t read and TV was boring. She even tried the firefighter video, but it looked silly and flat, not warm and sensual. How could anyone settle for video sex when there was the real thing out there? She wanted more of Miguel.

What if Miguel wanted more of Katherine?

There was only one way to find out. An hour later, she stood in the doorway to the Hyatt bar, dressed as she had been last night, her heart in her throat, looking for a certain lonely South American playboy with an on-and-off accent. What was the worst that could happen? If Miguel showed up, perfect. If not, no one would ever know how foolish she’d been.

Unfortunately, Miguel didn’t show. Probably for the best. How could a second time compete with the first? The major charm of last night had been the miraculous newness of it all. Ross must realize that. How uncharacteristically sensible of him.

Finally, when the lounge singer, an ancient-looking guy wearing a tux and a toupee in equally bad taste, started singing “Strangers in the Night,” she almost laughed out loud. Strangers in the night, indeed. She slid off her stool and practically ran out of the bar.