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Watches me like it’s his God-given right, and as if God hadn’t given it, he would’ve just done it anyway.
I’ve never done anything with so much confidence as this man has watching me right now.
The attention is thrilling, distracting, and I’m glad that I have my food to busy myself as I try to divert him with my special brand of inane conversation.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” I ask him through a mouthful of sandwich.
“You assume my mother taught me anything.”
The declaration paints an ominous tone, and I wait for him to finish his thought, but he doesn’t. And that’s kind of been par for the course for our one-sided conversation, a series of grunts, one-worded answers, unfinished thoughts, and stares.
Not that I actually mind the way he looks at me.
It gives me permission to stare back at him, and I do as blatantly as I dare.
His isn’t the kind of face you take your eyes off.
Unearthly in its symmetry, he looks like he stepped right out of one of the statue gardens of Versailles. Sculpted by the only thing that is more foolproof than the hand of God—pure science. A living, breathing, tea-drinking embodiment of the Golden Ratio, just walking around London like he’s not a bloody GQ ad, poured like liquid titanium into a perfectly tailored Armani suit that hasn’t deigned to be burdened with something as human as a wrinkle in its life.
I’d be more rattled by the way he’s looking at me if I hadn’t just had a sniffling, snotting, crying fit in his arms. Or still had an ounce of embarrassment left in my body. I hadn’t meant to; it’s just when he’d dragged me out of the bar, his arms wrapped tightly around me, my body had completely flooded with adrenaline from facing off with that meathead and then fighting Mr. Suit.
For the first time in a long time, I found myself in the arms of a total stranger.
One that made me feel unsteady and safe all at once.
And my body didn’t know what to do in that moment except to let the floodgates break open.
Now we’re here, with him watching over me while I eat a club sandwich, getting drunk on my third Irish coffee in the space of twenty minutes.
Thankfully, he does finally pull his eyes away from me, letting them slowly drag over our surroundings. His face looks disinterested, but his eyes are sharp, taking in every detail. After a minute of surveying the dining room, he slowly turns back to look at me and takes another sip of his delicious-smelling tea. I want to know what it is, but I can’t ask him considering I teased him about it when he ordered a hot water and pulled the tea bag out of his pocket.
“My sister-in-law concocted the tea for me. Chamomile and passion flower,” he offers now, as if reading my mind. “It’s supposed to help with my supposed, er, irritability.”
There’s an almost imperceptible roll of his blue eyes. If I wasn’t still staring at them, I might have missed it.
“You might need to return the tea and ask for your money back,” I say cryptically.
His cup stills for a split second halfway back to the table as he considers my words, and then he places it back on the saucer, without a word but with the tiniest of eyebrow twitches.
“I mean, unless they’re magic, there’s really only so much you can expect from some dried leaves,” I finish before I shove the last of my delicious sandwich into my mouth.
He doesn’t rise to the bait that time either, just reaches over and pushes his sandwich across the table to me.
“No, that’s yours,” I protest, though I don’t really want to. I’m still starving.
He doesn’t pull his plate back, just goes back to his tea.
I give him about another five seconds to change his mind, before picking up a sandwich half and shoving it into my mouth.
I can’t remember the last time I ate.
Even after the marathon and a half I walked today, I didn’t realize how hungry I was until he’d set me down on the ground after my crying fit and I almost toppled over from weakness.
“You’re not hungry?” I ask between mouthfuls.
He shakes his head.
“Well, you’re going to regret it, and I’m telling you now, there isn’t going to be anything left of this sandwich for you to snack on at four a.m. when you change your mind. I hope you’ve got some stale crackers in your kitchen, although I tend to prefer something a little more substantial, like a tub of yogurt or a pot roast or something,” I ramble, my nervousness returning now that my stomach is feeling happier.
