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I smiled and pulled away from his touch before it could scorch my soul. I could argue cost, ask what the occasion was, or half a dozen other things, but sometimes Tanner did random things like this, and he knew his budget. “They’re perfect, thank you.”
Was it just me or was this a little awkward? The three of us sitting around the table, staring at our fingers. I grabbed Tanner’s beer and took a long drag off the bottle. Still cold. “Oh, this is good.” I pulled it back to check the label. “Strawberry ale?”
“I’m a girl drink drunk.” Daria grinned. “If I have to keep beer in the fridge, it needs not taste like old socks.”
“Do you? Have to, I mean,” I asked.
Daria furrowed her brows. “No one’s forcing me to, but I had some left over from a cookout a few weeks ago, and tonight seemed like a good night to finish it off. There’s one bottle left if you want it.”
“I’m good, thanks.” It was tempting to drink a little, loosen up a little, and just let go, but one beer plus Chinese food wouldn’t do that, and if it did, the last thing I needed tonight was a reason to question my resolve to relegate Tanner tofriends for lifecolumn. Yup, I was friend-zoning myself.
The small talk bounced from Tanner’s time trials to Daria suddenly having the rest of the week off, and even paused on my day, but I was so focused on not paying attention to Tanner, that most of the conversation floated past me.
Pretty sure there was a parallel between that and the last however long of my life.
As we finished eating, Daria started to gather plates and close up boxes.
I grabbed her wrist loosely. “We’ve got this.”
She frowned. “Got what?”
“Go sit on the couch, relax, and we’ll clean up,” I said.
Daria didn’t move, and her disbelief was both tangible and cute.
I didn’t suspect she was used to help without having to bribe someone. “I promise you, Tanner knows how to load a dishwasher and I’m perfectly capable of putting leftovers in the fridge. If we weren’t capable of taking care of ourselves, our apartment would be a wreck.”
She pushed back from the table with an exaggerated sigh. “All right. I will stow my skepticism in favor of your generous offer. Be careful though.”
“With…?” I expected her to come back with some quirk about putting things away.
She finally smiled. “A woman could get used to this kind of treatment.”
I wished I could promise her that was an option. “Go.”
Tanner and I set to work with after-dinner clean-up. Each time one of us brushed past the other in the kitchen, a jolt raced through me. We had far less space at home, and even nursing a crush, this had never been a problem for me before. We were constantly sliding past each other, bumping gently against each other, and placing a casual hand here or there to keep from running into each other.
None of it had ever registered for me the way it did now, when I was trying so hard to ignore any connection we had.
“Are you all right?” Tanner asked quietly. “You seem a little, I don’t know, off?”
“I’m fine.” My assurance came quickly, and I heard the lie in my tone as much as I tasted it.
Tanner’s frown said he didn’t buy it any more than I did, but he didn’t push the issue.
We finished up, and headed toward the living room, Tanner grabbing the small box with fortune cookies as we walked.
“Heads-up,” he said, and tossed a pre-packaged cookie in Daria’s direction.
She snagged it out of the air without pause, from her spot on the corner of the sectional. Tanner tossed her a second one, and she caught it easily as well.
He settled in the middle of the couch, and I took a seat at the other end, as far from him as was possible without sitting on the floor. He gave me a questioning look, then tossed me two cookies.
“Ooh, are we playingin bed?” Daria asked.
Tanner worked his jaw.
I had no idea how to answer the seemingly nonsensical question. “We’re sitting on the couch. Playing what?”
