The next hour is a mix of Matts, Zachs, and Joshes. Was there a discount on four-lettered names tonight? Some make me laugh, some are pretty, some are kind. None kick up the butterflies in my stomach—shut up;hedoesn’t count.
None of them look at me the way Benji does.
Which is why it’s so much harder to ignore him when the last table I get sent to is next to him.
The woman sitting across from him is gorgeous. Glowing skin, silky black hair cut in the perfect bob, kind eyes. A little older, close to thirty, like Benji. If I wasn’t as straight as an arrow, I’d want to date her.
“You must be Benji,” she greets warmly. “Carla. Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
I should be paying attention to my own date. Peter, or Mike, is explaining the splint on his left hand. Something about a game of pickleball, and I’m trying not to zone out, I swear, but I can’t help it. Benji ishere, inches away from me after a year of haunting my dreams.
No one else stands a chance.
“Tell me about yourself,” Carla suggests, trailing a perfect nail down the stem of her wineglass.
Good luck with that, I want to warn her.
Getting personal information out of Benji is like getting me to agree to karaoke. Not going to happen.
“Not much to tell.”
See?
“Oh, I doubt that. Why don’t you tell me …” She reaches for a card. “What’s your favorite way to unwind?”
That’s easy—work. As long as he can lock himself away with his tools, he’s happy.
“Being in my workshop relaxes me.”
I sneak a look over at him; the lamplight highlights his best features, which is all of them.
Carla is unsurprisingly enraptured.
He’s going to win this bet. He’s all suave and sexy. The man works with his hands, for fuck’s sake. People trust him with intimate parts of themselves—personal photos and sentimental art—and he makes something special just for them.
Carla leans in, shortening the distance between them, and something twists in my gut. “Oh? What do you make?”
Picture frames.
“I’m a carpenter, but I specialize in framing,” he answers. His tone is pleasant but even, which gives me absolutely no way of telling if he’s interested in her. “What about you? What do you do to unwind?”
As she gives her answer—peppermint tea and a footsoak—I make encouraging noises to Peter or Mike (or maybe it’s Freddy?), who still hasn’t asked me anything.
“Do you really find work relaxing?” Carla asks. “You wouldn’t prefer to be at the beach or something?”
Ha. Benji hates the beach.
He shakes his head. “Too much sand.”
“That’s a shame,” she says. “I love an early morning swim to wake me up in the summer. It really gets the blood pumping.”
I know the exact feeling she’s talking about—the frigid shock that zaps through you with your first plunge, so cold that you can’t describe it, but it sets every nerve in your body alight. A lightning-quick adrenaline rush.
Benji prefers hotter, more intimate ways of waking up, if I remember correctly.
He won’t say this, of course. It’s too personal.
