He sees me coming and his eyes do a slow trail down my frame and then back again. “You pick up all your dates here?” I quip.
He exhales slowly and shakes his head. “I didn’t think there was a woman alive who could have me waiting on her in a college dorm,” he replies. “But then again, I wasn’t expecting you, Boots.”
Well, hell, I don’t have a reply for that. I stare in his eyes for a moment and nod, the moment strangely intimate. He has the most devastating blue eyes, and I’m finding I really like having their attention on me.
He helps me into my coat and we head out. As he holds the car door for me I realize I still don’t know where we’re going, and it’s nice. Not planning the date is fan-freaking-tastic. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to ask him what he wants to do and worry about him having a good time. I just get to have fun. Sawyer might be right about being pursued versus doing the pursuing. Unless he’s about to take me to a strip club.
We make it as far as 5th Street, which isn’t far at all, when I remember that I Googled him today. And that I know too much. Like his middle name (Thomas) and his birthday (January twenty-seventh) and his net worth (a lot). All stuff I should not yet know. It’s probably no more information than he’s dug up on me, but still, it feels weird. It might be the billions part that makes it weird. It’s definitely the billions part.
I fidget in my seat and then ask if he had a good day at work.
“The afternoon was pretty tedious. I had to sit through a meeting with a raging hard-on.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I don’t even mumble it sarcastically.
“What’s going on here, Boots? No snappy retort from you?” We’re stopped at a light by the hospital. An ambulance whizzes past, the red and blue lights slicing through the car.
“Nothing is going on.” I shake my head and sit up straighter.
“Ah, you finally Googled me, didn’t you?” he says, smirking.
“Um, yeah.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t act differently.”
“Is that why you like me? No one else will call you an asshole to your face?”
“It’s a struggle, Boots, a real struggle to find that kind of honesty. I cry into my thousand-thread-count custom-made Kleenex all the time. Sure, I can get Siri to call me an asshole, but it’s hard to take a phone seriously, you know? She lacks the acrimony.”
“Siri does no such thing,” I respond, but I’m smiling.
“I do not lie, Everly Jensen. Do it right now.”
I’m laughing now, but I’m game. I swipe my phone and hit the home button, summoning the Siri feature, and request that she call me an asshole. When she responds in her pleasant robot voice, requesting confirmation that from now on she’ll call me “Asshole,” we both completely lose it.
I’m still calming myself from my giggle fit when we pull into a parking garage. I see a logo for the Ritz-Carlton as we glide past it. Seriously? Okay, yes, I was sorta hoping we could skip to this part, but a hotel? Billionaires are all the same. I’ve only met one, but they’re probably all the same. Arrogant. And weird. A hotel? His house would have been fine.
“I cannot believe you brought me to a hotel.” I gasp. “Is this your version of Netflix and chill? It’s not cool, Sawyer. Not cool.” I’m getting really into it now, waving my arms around. “A hotel? Are you one of those weird billionaires who can’t even take a woman to their house? You said we were going on a date.” I finish in a huff, dropping my hands in my lap.
Your move, Sawyer.
He pulls into a parking spot and kills the engine before turning to me and resting his arm over the back of my headrest. He leans in and meets my gaze head on, pausing for a second before responding.
“I live here,” he says, completely straight-faced. “Not in the hotel, that would be”—he pauses, recalling my wording—“weirdly billionaire of me. I live in the residential tower. In a condo, not a hotel room.”
Oh.
“Also, I’m just parking the car. We’re going to Love Park. It’s a couple blocks”—he points over my shoulder—“that way.”
Well, shit. I’m tapping a finger on my chin trying to think a way out of this fake tantrum when he can’t keep a straight face anymore and grins.
“You are the worst actress, Everly.”
“Am not!” I cannot believe he just said that to me. My drama is on point.
“Are so.”
“Trust me, you would not believe the stuff I get away with,” I boast. Wait. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. I frown and bite my lip.
“I don’t doubt it, Boots. You’ve been a constant source of entertainment in my life, that’s for sure. Yet now that I’ve met you, I can’t get enough of you.”
“You don’t think I’m a bit much?” I hold my breath. Everyone thinks I’m a bit much.
“Never.”
Twenty-Seven