Page 2 of The Apparent Trap

“You sat next to me,” he says, recovering with a shrug.

I look around, wondering if I’ve missed something. “Uh, you sat next to me.”

“Well, my drink was here,” he says, pointing to a highball glass filled with amber liquid.

“Your drink was, but you weren’t.”

His eyes widen, and he rubs at his face with the realization that I might be onto something. “That’s . . .” He looks at me again, then grabs his drink and takes a big sip. “Well, that’s a good point.”

Up close, he looks a bit more unraveled today than his usual sunny morning show demeanor. His dark-sandy hair with a hint of gray is a bit rumpled. And the smell of whiskey is more pronounced than I first realized.

“You have no idea who I am,” I say, that part now painfully obvious.

“I know you’re adorable?” He flashes a grin that I’m sure he believes hides everything else.

“No woman wants to be adorable,” I counter.

“I didn’t want you to slap me if I said I found you irresistibly sexy instead.”

I roll my eyes, and that makes him laugh, a real one, nothing like the hemmed-in chuckle I hear him do on the show.

“‘Irresistibly sexy’ sounds like a terrible line from a nineties shampoo commercial,” I say.

“Or a porno.”

“You can’t say ‘porno’ to a woman you’ve just met.”

“I thought you implied we’d already met?” he quips back. I must do something with my face (my god, I can’t hide a thought for the life of me) because he raises a single eyebrow, curious now. “You thought I wasn’t listening.”

“Do you want a pat on the back?”

“No, I—”

“This conversation started because you thought a woman was interested in you just because she sat next to your drink. So forgive me for assuming that the bar for your attention to detail isn’t very high at the moment.”

“Oh, only at this moment?” He tilts his head, watching me, still grinning, still lethal.

I hate that my instinct is to look behind me to see who he’s grinning at. Men like this don’t flirt with me. It’s not that I think I’m unattractive, but I do give off leave-me-alone vibes. I’m the one playing sudoku blissfully next to the friends who are getting hit on.

“Where did we meet before?” he asks, but I’m not taking the bait.

“What’s your angle?” I ask, bluntly elegant as always.

“My angle?”

“It’s the makeup, probably,” I say, as much to myself as to him.

“What does that even mean?”

I sigh. “My friend Georgia says that men are totally hoodwinked by women wearing makeup. It’s a magic trick we can play to short-circuit their brains a little. Makeup and maybe push-up bras.”

“I can’t say ‘porno,’ but you can say ‘push-up bras’?”

“Yes,” I continue, because now I’m on a roll. “On a regular day you probably wouldn’t notice me anyway because I normally don’t give a shit, but tonight I got dressed up for my dad—”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t expect me not to want elaboration on that part of the story.”

“—for an awards ceremony for him, don’t be weird. And now, because I’m wearing makeup and my hair looks like someone who tried, you think I’m flirtable.”