“It doesn’t,” he cut me off. “I get it. My grandmother died, and sometimes I find myself just standing by her grave, saying random things.”
I looked up at him and our eyes met. We smiled together, slowly at first, and then both looked away. We sat there in silence for a few moments, both sipping on our drinks. I could sense something in the silence. Something under it that was noisy and trying to break free of it.
“Okay, I have a confession to make,” Mike suddenly said, turning to face me on the bar stool.
I leaned towards him slightly. “That sounds scandalous. Do tell.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath, as if he was getting himself ready. “It was me that read your book, not my friend. I bought the book for myself and I . . . well, I’m not afraid to say it—even if it might emasculate me terribly, when I am trying to be very masculine around you—I cried at the end.”
I burst out laughing. “Cried?”
He nodded. “Yes. Well, maybe twice, if I’m totally honest with you . . . Maybe even more than twice . . . Okay, okay, I cried several times throughout the book, not just at the end.” He looked at me through those long lashes. The long lashes that framed those deadly green eyes of his. His pupils were big and black and took up most of the green now. I felt compelled to look into them, as if there was a law written somewhere:Must look into Mike’s eyes!“So, do you think less of me now, as a man?” he asked, with a smile that was clearly a teasing one.
I laughed. “Maybe just a little bit.”
“I thought women liked men with emotions.” He took another sip of his drink. The black liquid slipped through his lips. He swallowed, and then licked the corner of his mouth.
“What women like is a very complicated thing, Mike,” I said, pulling my eyes away from his mouth.
“Really?” He raised that sexy, scarred, Drogo-esque brow at me again.
“Well, I mean, in general, since I have no idea what I want, specifically,” I said.
“Please, enlighten me. What do women want?”
I looked at him and shook my head. “I can’t. I’d be betraying my sex if I told you, and then I’d have to kill you.”
“Really?” He leaned in closer to me.
“Yup; we all take a secret oath when we’re born, you see.”
He laughed at this. “I knew it! It’s what I’ve always suspected.”
“We’re like the illuminati, actually.”
“That is so true!” he said. “You even have your own secret handshakes and secret looks and codes and mysterious languages that you speak that we’re clearly all incapable of understanding, because our brains are just not wired to extrapolate that ‘Yes, I’m fine’ actually means that you’re not ‘fine’, or that ‘Nothing’s wrong’ actually means thateverythingis wrong.”
“Oooh, sounds like someone has been on the receiving end of a very angry woman.”
He shrugged. “I may have, in the past, misinterpreted some female signs and made a few guy mistakes along the way.”
“Aaaah, and what guy mistakes have you made?” I asked, my cheeks feeling flushed with the giddiness of our obvious flirtation.
“Well, I possibly didn’t notice a new haircut once,” he said, looking up at me with those malachite eyes.
I gasped. “And how long were you guilty of that?”
“It was hard to say, but, in my defense, she did wear a cap during the day, so it was hard to see she’d cut bangs.”
“She cut bangs and you didn’t notice?! You’re clearly not very observant!” I laughed.
“Funny, that’s what she said, too.” He said it in a joking tone, but I sensed an air of sadness in his voice, and suddenly my stomach tightened.
“I take it this was a serious relationship?” I asked, looking back at my drink so he couldn’t see the expression on my face.
“Well, I thought so, until she dumped me for someone else. Clearly, I’m very bad at reading girl signals.” He turned and gave me a small, tentative smile.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m notoriously bad at reading man signals.”
