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ChapterTwelve
Gideon
Skye watcheswith a cute grin as I pour her another margarita. When I suggested sharing a pitcher, she balked and said she shouldn’t drink tonight since she’d had wine last night. I called her on it because Chloe has told me crazy stories about the two of them drinking, often about the two of them drinking too much, laughing so loud in public places they get kicked out, and feeling like roadkill the next day.
Under the impatient eyes of our waiter, Skye finally relented and suggested half a pitcher. She drank her first margarita so slowly, you’d think she was a rookie, but she slurped up the last of it pretty quickly.
“Do you come here a lot?” I ask her. I left The Hep Cat around six tonight, and I was starving. I missed lunch today—got busy with more inventory and helping Wamba move some of the instruments around in the back room.
Skye snickers when I look at her, expecting an answer. I decided to text her about getting something for dinner. Figured she’s letting me live rent free in her place, so treating her to dinner now and then, if not every night, is the least I can do. I’ve never texted her before, and I don’t normally get hung up on texting. But it felt kind of weird. Like, I even started my text with hey, it’s Gideon. And then I wondered if Chloe had given her my number and if so, did that make me look like a nerd?
She agreed to meet for dinner almost immediately. She got my text just as she was leaving some makeup store after work. So, we’re at this Mexican restaurant that’s in the same area as the makeup store.
“What’re you laughing about?” I roll my eyes. Sometimes, she feels like another sister. She reminds me a lot of Chloe. I don’t like that idea because the things I’ve been thinking about her are anything but familial.
“Just wondering if that’s your pickup line.” She shrugs.
“Maybe I don’t need pickup lines.”
“Oh.” She nods. “Well, okay, then. You what? Just walk in the room and women fall at your feet?”
Sometimes, that’s how it is, but it makes me feel uncomfortable when she says it.
I pick at the remains of my burrito. I wasn’t sure I wanted Mexican food when she suggested it, but it hit the spot, and it was good enough that I can overlook the weak margaritas.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Mmm.” She frowns and looks around the dining area. It’s a trendy, upscale place, and while it’s okay, places like this are not my usual scene. I like locally owned places. Something off the beaten path. Tiny, maybe cozy. Bad lighting, although maybe someone would call that atmosphere. “I really don’t. I was probably here once in the last year.”
“You don’t like Mexican food?”
“Love it.” She snaps her gaze back to mine. “But I usually go to a little place closer to my apartment. Kind of a sleepy little place. Maybe four tables. They do a lot of take out.”
Interesting. Sounds like we might have something else in common. Reading and Mexican food. Not much to connect on, but it’s something.
“Let’s do that next time.”
The words are out of my mouth and hanging there between us, and Skye and I stare at each other around them. She looks stunned, and I’m thinking it probably sounded like I expect her to go out with me again.
“I mean.” I shrug. Skye’s perfectly arched brows jump a bit, and then she snorts with laughter and covers her mouth. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” She nods.
But, like an idiot, I keep talking.
“I don’t like commercialized stuff.”
Her gaze is intense as I avoid it and study my half empty glass.
“Don’t do a lot of chain things.”
“Don’t do the St. Louis Arch,” she mumbles.
“Why do you have to take that personally?”
She flops back in her chair and folds her arms over her chest. Today, her button-up blouse is a crisp white and tucked into a long, slim-fitting emerald-green skirt. She’s wearing black heels, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cuss her skirt for hiding her legs when I saw her crossing the parking lot to go inside.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “But I do.”
