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"You never know how it's going to go," I said, shrugging a little.
"So you can live with it."
Could I? Honestly, I didn't know for sure. But the only way for foggy things to get clearer was to progress into them. So I just had to wrap some barbed wire around my heart and hope that, along with some surprisingly good communication skills, he wasn't equipped with wire cutters too.
"I'm a big girl, Paine. And I'm also really hungry. So where are you taking me?"
"Sushi," he said, pushing me onto my feet then standing himself. "Figured you didn't want any more comfort food after that workout."
I turned back on my way to the door. "Are you following me?"
"No, babe. Doesn't take a genius to guess that after the pancakes, you were feeling guilty and would hit the gym after work," he explained, letting me slip into my coat then putting a hand at my lower back as he led me out the front door.
Just like the apparent mobster Luca Grassi, Paine was the opening doors type. It was a quality I really appreciated. While, sure, I could open the thing my damn self, it was nice that there were still men out there who employed good old-fashioned chivalry, provided it didn't come with chauvinism. Something told me that since Paine grew up with a strong mother, aunts, grandmother, and two little sisters, there was no way he was going to pull that sexism shit on me.
Twenty minutes later, we were out of Navesink Bank and walking up to the best sushi restaurant in the area. It was situated right on the beach, the back deck allowing an uninterrupted view of the crashing waves, even in the dead of winter. The inside was sleek, sticking to a classic theme of orange and black: black tables, chairs, sushi bar, and drink bar, black hardwood floors, black textured walls and orange hanging dome lights, orange upholstery on the booth backs, and water color black and orange understated artwork. The music, as always, was low and bluesy, inviting conversation. Paine walked me up to the hostess, his hand at my lower back, and I realized that it was a quality I really liked about him. Around other people, he liked to have a hand on me, claiming me. Maybe I was setting my sex back a couple of years to admit I liked it, but I did.
We sat and ordered drinks. Paine kept up light comments on the menu selection. I had my own menu up, but I hadn't so much as glanced at it, far more occupied watching him read his.
"What?" he asked, looking up with a smile, catching me.
"Nothing," I said, averting my eyes.
"Nuh-uh. You aren't getting off that easy."
"Nothing. You look nice," I admitted with a casual shrug. "And," I rushed to add, feeling almost a little shy at the admission which was completely unlike me, "I hadn't expected you to be a sushi kind of guy."
"You think I look nice, huh?"
"Shut up," I laughed, swatting him with my menu.
"I mean, can't blame you for thinking that, babygirl. I'm fine as fuck..."
"And so humble," I smiled.
"Know what?"
"No, what?"
"You look nice too. And by 'nice' I mean it's taking just about every ounce of self-control I got to not drag you off to the bathroom, hike up that skirt, and fuck you hard enough for this entire restaurant to know how much I like how you look in that dress."
He said this, mind you, as the waitress came back to drop our drinks. So, yeah, she overheard the entire thing and her cheeks went pink and she couldn't quite make eye-contact with either of us as she took our order.
"What?" he asked when I shook my head at him as she walked away. "Pretty sure everyone in here knows we want to fuck each other."
"Well they can assume things, but you didn't have to confirm it."
"You embarrassed?" he asked, picking up his craft beer with a smirk.
"No, I'm not embarrassed, but our waitress obviously is."
"She'll get over it. It'll give her a story to tell all the other servers later. So," he said, letting the word hang.
Oh, the small talk part of the evening. Usually it was something I excelled with, but mostly because I shared numerous friends or relations with the men I went on dates with. It was always easy to commiserate about sharing prep schools or ridiculous social engagements we had been forced into at young ages. I had nothing like that to play off with Paine. "So..." I repeated.
"Tell me about your sister," he offered, sitting back, making his legs push forward under the table and his knees pressed into mine.
So then I told him about my sister.
Elana was always a good topic for me. While Roman was my best friend, my confidant, my partner in crime, Elana was the one who first sneaked me a cigarette and a bottle of scotch. Our mother dying early put her in the strange position to, at once, feel the need to mother me, but also corrupt me like all good big sisters do. She was the one to sit me down and have the period talk. She was the one to explain to me what a penis looked like, what it felt like, what losing my virginity would be like. She was the one to pick me and Rome up when we got knock-down drunk at a friend's house and sneak us up into my room before our dad could see us. She was the one to push Dad's buttons to draw his attention away from me when he was being too hard.
