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Then his seriousness fades and the music and conversation comes pouring back in. That little pocket of silence breaks up and I wonder if I just imagined the whole thing.
Once again: eerie.
Fidgeting uncomfortably in the full blast of his attention, I pick up my menu and wield it between us like a shield. “So, uh, what’s good here?” I ask. “I’ve never been here before—never had Russian food at all, actually—but I am starving.”
He looks at me for one more long breath before his eyes flick over my shoulder. A waitress materializes there immediately. She looks scared of him.
I get it, girl. So am I.
“We’ll take one of everything,” he orders.
My jaw hits the tablecloth. “Oh, you really don’t need to?—”
“And two of the zharkoye.”
The waitress nods and scampers off, leaving me to look at him and wonder what the hell is going on. With just about any other guy, I’d worry that he was trying to be impressive with some flashy rich dude stunt. But something tells me this man couldn’t care less about impressing me.
“That’s a lot of food,” I mumble. “I’m a cheap date, I promise.”
“Then you should value yourself higher.”
I do a double-take. “I said I’m a cheap date, not a pathetic one.”
Sergey arches an amused eyebrow. “Did I offend you, solnyshka?”
“No, it’s not—You didn’t—I’m just—Goddammit.” I scowl. I’m walking a precarious line between being a bitch and being dumbfounded by the way this man just rips through the world at odd angles and makes no apologies for it. He’s like a freaking force of nature, bulldozing everything in his path with no regard for social courtesies.
He was right about one thing, though: I’ve never met anyone else quite like him.
I decide to let sleeping dogs lie and change the topic. “You pronounced the name of that dish flawlessly. Are you Russian?”
“Born and bred,” he confirms with a nod. “My family came over when I was four.”
“Mom? Dad? Siblings?”
“Yes,” he says with such a sudden, polished vagueness that it’s like he’s hypnotizing me to forget the subject altogether. He props his elbows on the table and leans in again. “What about your family?”
That’s odd. Some people don’t like talking about their families; I get that. But it’s a blind date and it’s a normal-enough question, right? And yet something in his reaction makes me feel like I just crossed about a dozen serious lines he’d drawn in the sand.
“Uh, family, let’s see… no, not really. Dad was never a thing. Haven’t seen my mom in a long time. Ditto for my brother. We just never really… connected, I guess. I’m sorry—did you say yes to having a mom, a dad, siblings, or all the above?”
“I only said yes.”
He stares right at me, practically daring me to keep prying. I want to. I ought to. But for some reason, I don’t.
I glance down at my shot glass instead. “Are we drinking this or just babysitting it?”
Sergey laughs. “It would be a waste of good vodka to let it sit. What should we toast to?”
“You’re the one with all the smooth lines,” I fire back. “You decide.”
He raises his glass, that mouth of his twitching up into yet another amused smirk. “To the last first date either of us will ever go on,” he suggests.
“Amen to that.” I tap my glass against his and throw it straight down the hatch.
It burns like hell on the way down, but as soon as it hits my stomach, a pleasant chill ripples all the way through me from the inside out.
Sergey licks his lips. One quick flash of his tongue. It’s strangely seductive for something so unthinking and automatic.
