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To show him I hadn’t been flirting because that would have been weird, I brought up my undying love for Dr. Stephen Florris. “Well, my doctor is super hot, and he wants me to lay off sugar because of my anxiety, so it would be pretty embarrassing to have to tell him I chugged this giant hot chocolate with all this whipped cream.”
“Do you have to see him soon or something?”
“Oh, no. Just…thinking ahead.” I eyed the hot chocolate but didn’t pick it up. “This probably isn’t a good idea, actually. Like, for real.”
“Are you saying you don’t want the hot chocolate I just bought you?”
I looked at him. “Maybe? Yeah, I guess I am. Do you want it?”
“Uh, well, no. I have this candy cane mocha already.”
“Please? Just take it?” I pushed my hot chocolate slowly toward him with my finger. When it reached the edge of the coaster, it tipped over and spilled across the table, the base of the napkin holder, the sugar packet container, and a little bit onto Cass’s lap before he leaped up, somehow righting the mug in one fluid motion.
“Jesus, Fran.”
“Sorry. Sorry, I’m—I’m so sorry.” I grabbed a bunch of napkins out of the holder. “Sorry, I’ll just…”
I mopped the table for what felt like an hour while he watched me. It was, in reality, probably only about three seconds before he jumped in to help.
“Did I burn you?” I asked anxiously, stuffing the dripping napkins behind the sugar packet thingie.
“No. Luckily I’ve got long johns on underneath my pants.”
“You’re wearing long johns?”
He shot me a crooked smile. “It’s cold outside.”
“Has anyone called them long johns since, like, 1925?”
“That’s what my family always called them!” he protested. “Why, what do you say?”
“I dunno. Thermal underwear, I guess.”
“‘Thermal underwear,’” he repeated. “Nerd.”
“Okay, Mr.Long Johns. Why don’t you and Bugsy Seigel hop in your Model T and—”
“Fran!” We were both laughing, and I forgot, for a moment, that I was the sort of disaster the White House ought to be holding press conferences about.
“Do you want me to get you another drink?” Cass asked. “Something less sugary?”
I gazed at him for a few seconds, reminding myself, as I looked into his gorgeous eyes, not to look into his gorgeous eyes. I shook my head. “No. I might burn your balls off with the next one. We can’t risk it.”
My stomach lurched, because it had been eighteen years since I’d had any right to talk about Cass’s balls and I was suddenly terrified I’d offended him.
But he laughed again. “I actually wound up at the doctor’s way too recently for a, um, pretty embarrassing reason. So, yeah, would rather avoid a repeat. And, coincidentally, my doctor was hot too.”
“Hey, maybe we have the same doctor. Who’s yours?”
“Dr. Florris.”
“Oh my god, mine too!” I lowered my voice to a stage whisper. “He’s so hot.”
“He’s so hot,” Cass agreed.
“Like,so, just—”
“Right.”
