He grabbed
his suitcase and held the classroom door open for her. He drove them to the
same café where she’d eaten with Jane, and he did most of the talking. He was
thrity-four, had been working at the college for seven years, loved The Da Vinci Code, etc. She ordered a
mocha and let Aaron pay for it. He got a coffee.
“Wow, $3.75?” he commented, looking
at how much a mocha was on the menu. “You’re an expensive date.”
He was only teasing, and Lana
smiled a little to humor him. Or was she really smiling? She couldn’t tell.
They chose a table in the corner of the small dining area.
“So,” he
began casually. “What are you angry about?”
Lana raised
her eyebrows, unimpressed by the personal question. She took a sip of her
drink, and replied just as casually, “I suppose I’m angry about my ex.”
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“Husband.”
He seemed surprised.
“But you can’t be more than, what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-three,”
she corrected with a wry smile. “Got married right out of college, and it only
took a year his dick to decide it needed some excitement outside of the
marriage.”
Aaron
didn’t seem fazed by this new piece of information, only thoughtful as he took
a sip of coffee. But Lana was not ready for her messed up marriage to be their
topic of conversation.
“Look,” she
began after a moment. “This is a date, right?”
“I was
hoping,” he replied.
“Then this
isn’t something we should be discussing. I may have been out of the dating loop
for a couple years, but I know exes aren’t a great topic for the first date.”
He took the
hint and changed the subject.
“I like
you,” he told her matter-of-factly, making eye contact both to express his
sincerity and to gauge her reaction.
Lana wasn’t
sure she liked this topic any better than the last one. But a blush rose to her
cheeks and she felt flattered in spite of herself.
“You don’t
even know me,” was all she could think to say.
“Yes I do,”
he replied with a cocky grin.
She remained silent, daring him
to continue.
“I know your name is Lana
Monroe,” he said in a low voice, so only she could hear. “You’re twenty-three
and jaded—”
“I just
told you that,” she pointed out. “It doesn’t count.”
He smiled,
once again finding her cynicism amusing, but otherwise continued as if she
hadn’t spoken.
“You have perfect
pink lips that frown too much and adorable freckles on your nose. You have
auburn hair,” he reached out to touch it, and she let him, her defenses
failing, “soft auburn hair, and
gorgeous green eyes that, lucky for me, tell me everything you’re feeling.”
Lana could
think of nothing to say. The fact he’d studied her so carefully and gotten to
know her so well in just four days made her uncomfortable yet strangely happy.
She took a sip of her mocha, and another butterfly was resurrected.
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