I gave her pistol fingers, even though I had already made up my mind. “That’s a good plan. I’ll go.”
“I’m proud of you. You never do anything fun. Ooh, maybe you guys will bone!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m going to have a drink. Stop pimping me out.” I hurried to the door. “If you don’t get a text from me by two a.m., file a missing persons report.”
I heard her cackling gleefully as the door shut behind me.
Adam watched me closely as I made my way down the stairs toward him for the second time that night. “You look lovely.”
“I just put on a sweater.”
“Well, you look lovely in that sweater.”
“Thank you.”
He took my hand in his. “Come on.”
I pulled him the other way. “It’s this way.”
“Oh right, ha! Just testing you.”
I honestly didn’t know what I was thinking, leaving my house at almost midnight on a dark street, four blocks from Skid Row, with a stranger. I guess my intuition wasn’t sounding any alarms when it came to Adam.
We found two seats at the bar and ordered the same glass of wine, so Adam suggested we get a bottle. “Why not?” I said, fully throwing caution to the wind.
“So, Charlotte, tell me about yourself. What do you do?”
“Well, I work at Blackbird’s, that shitty restaurant on Fourth. But I’m saving up to go to cosmetology school.”
“Blackbird’s? The place with the Bloody Mary bar and those weird flags?”
“That’s the one!” I said, with equal parts triumph and embarrassment.
“Good tortilla soup, though, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Time to change the subject. “What about you, Adam?”
“I used to be a lawyer, actually.”
“A lawyer?” I didn’t expect that.
“Yeah, corporate litigation. The really depraved kind.” He smirked.
“What, did you find God or something?”
“Yeah, something like that.” He reached out and touched my bottom lip with his thumb. I had been chewing the inside of my mouth, a lovely habit I acquired as a toddler. “You’re gonna chew your mouth off.”
“I always do this.”
“It’s cute.”
“It’s kind of gross.”
“You’re right, it’s disgusting,” he said, but I could tell he was kidding.
“Hey!” I protested, and we both laughed. “So you were working as a corrupt lawyer and then you found God and quit? How do you afford that fancy Chinese takeout?”
He stared at me intensely for a moment. “Do you want to come over?” Whoa. That was abrupt.
“Um, what? To your house?”
“Yeah! Do you want to have a sleepover?” He waggled his eyebrows. Oh my god, this guy is forward.
“Honestly, that kind of freaks me out, Adam.” Truth be told, I totally wanted to have a sleepover at his house, but it was a little soon. Even by Helen’s standards.
“Okay, we’ll just have the wine then.” He took a sip as if he were totally unfazed by my rejection. “To answer your question, I’m taking a break from work. And I paint.”
“Houses?”
He laughed. “No, artwork.”
“Oh, that kind of painter.”
“Are you an art fan, Charlotte?”
“Who isn’t?”
“A lot of people, unfortunately.” He laughed. “Tell me more about your life, your family. How do you like to spend your time?”
He watched me like he was trying to commit everything I said to memory. There were things I noticed about him as he sat there, engrossed in my ramblings. First of all, he was insanely handsome. His skin and hair were just dark enough to make the brown of his eyes seem impossibly light, and he was tall and slim while looking strong and capable all at once.
It’s incredibly sexy when a man is as comfortable in his skin as Adam was. His motions were smooth, from the way he lifted his wineglass to his mouth to the way he gestured with his hands. There was an ease about him. And he was spontaneous and fun. It excited me.
“My mom and dad are still happily married, living in Thousand Oaks, where I grew up. I have a little brother, Chucky, who’s in school studying to be a dentist, just like my dad. Total golden boy. He’s kind of a dick. I’m close to my mom because she gets me, but my dad has always been hypercritical, at least of me. He calls me Paper Doll.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he thinks I’m fickle. Like I’ll float away in a gust of wind.”
“Wow. That’s kinda harsh.”
“Well, I guess I am a bit scattered.”
“You don’t seem like that to me.”
“You don’t know me that well.”
He smiled like he thought that had no bearing on the situation.
“Boyfriend?” he asked.
“No. You?”
“I’m straight.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “I mean, do you have a girlfriend?”
He smiled. God, those dimples. Those lips. I couldn’t look away from him; it was as if we were inhabiting our own little vignette, separate from the rest of the bar. He squinted and then shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re really beautiful, Charlotte. And . . . I want to kiss you.”
“This is moving really fast, Adam,” I stammered.
“Life’s short,” he said again, looking intently into my eyes, entranced.
I held up my palm. “Not mine.”
“Braggart,” he whispered as he leaned in, watching my mouth.
We met halfway and suddenly we were kissing. Slowly, delicately. No other body parts touching but our lips.
He pulled away and opened his eyes. “Do you want to come to my house and have a sleepover?”
“You asked me already.”
“What was your answer again?”
“My answer was yes, absolutely, without a doubt. Let’s go back to your place.”
He pulled out his wallet and threw some money on the bar before holding up the bottle of wine to the bartender. “Can we take this?”
The bartender pushed the cork back into the half-empty bottle and then placed it in a paper bag and handed it to Adam. “See you soon, Adam,” he said.
“Yeah, you too, man.”
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“Sure. He’s the bartender here.” He held out his hand to help me off the stool. “Come on, kid, let’s have a pajama party.”
We walked hand in hand toward Adam’s apartment building. “You don’t seem lawyerly,” I said.
“What’s lawyerly? Like, douche-y?”
“No, like . . . disciplined. Tightly wound. High-strung. You were roaming the streets in the middle of the night, wearing flip-flops and offering Chinese food to strangers.”
“You must not know very many lawyers. Anyway, now I’m roaming the streets in the middle of the night, wearing flip-flops, carrying Chinese food, and holding your hand. I win. And there’s nothing more lawyerly than winning.”
I laughed. “Should I prepare myself for a ridiculously clean and organized loft? Like, will I have to take my shoes off?”
“It’s a total mess. I’m actually a little embarrassed,” he said, but I don’t think he was truly embarrassed. He just seemed too confident to be embarrassed about anything.
Adam stopped suddenly when he spotted a BMW parked crookedly in a space on the street in front of his building. It was decorated with several orange envelopes, which I recognized as parking tickets. “Shit, I didn’t even notice those earlier.” He began pulling the envelopes off one by one until he was holding a healthy stack.