"Do you think all that food will fit on this table?" I point at the little round table I brought into the office this weekend with two chairs. In my head, I would be able to sit and have a coffee and my meals there. In reality, I eat straight from the container at my desk.
"We can make it fit," he says, and I want to tell him to relax, but seeing him all nervous about me is, well, there just aren’t words for it.
He puts the bags down on the desk. "I’ll go get us something to drink." I turn to walk out of the room.
"Only water for me," he says, and I laugh, turning around.
"It’s an office. Did you think we’d have a stocked bar?" I shake my head.
"Some offices have happy hour," he replies, and then I just stare at him. "Or do they go out for that?" He shrugs and then laughs nervously again. "Hey, I play hockey where we only drink on the off-season."
"Or at weddings." I put in and he laughs.
"Or if you win the Stanley Cup." He points at me. "You are allowed to get shit-faced for a month if that happens."
"I know a couple of people who won the Cup." He rolls his eyes. "They only got drunk for a bit of it."
"Then they didn’t do it right," he says, and I laugh full-on belly laughs. "Go get the drinks. I’ll set up the buffet." He motions with his hands at the four bags. I nod, walking toward the communal kitchen, and I grab two bottles of water. I also look around and check out other offices to make sure we are alone. Not that anything we are doing is wrong, but I don’t want people to think he did the show because we are together. Seeing all the lights off in all the other offices, I walk back to my office, and the smell of Chinese food hits me right away.
The whole table is filled with containers. "Oh my God," I say, walking in. "You really did order all the food."
"Well, I didn’t know what you liked." He looks down at the spread on the table. "So I took five of everything in the category." He walks over to one of the chairs and holds it out. "Sit."
"Such a gentleman," I say, sitting down. "You weren’t a gentleman at that last game," I say, and his eyes shine, and I want to kick myself.
"You watched the game?" he asks. His hand remains on the chair, and the warmth of his fingers through my silk shirt sends a shiver up my arm.
"My family was over, and their men are on the team, so I had no choice." I try to pretend I didn’t really watch the game.
Then he leans down until his head is next to mine, and I can smell him. "I like knowing you watched me." If I turn my face right, we would be face-to-face. I turn my head at the same time as he stands up and walks over to his chair. "You know what this is missing?" he says, sitting down, looking at me. God, his eyes are mesmerizing. "Candles."
"No to the candles." I look at the food and wonder if he’ll notice if I don’t eat any of it. "Dig in," I tell him and he grabs the closest dish to him and also the only dish I eat. He holds the container in his hand as he grabs a pair of chopsticks.
I look around nervously for something to pick at. "Do you like Chinese food?" he says, and I roll my lips. "You don’t like Chinese food.”
"It’s not that I don’t like it," I say now. "It’s just, an hour after you finish eating, you're hungry again." I shrug.
"So you don’t like any of this?" He chuckles.
"I like beef and broccoli," I say, and he looks down at the container.
"Do you want some?" he jokes with me.
"No, I want the whole thing." He laughs and just hands it over. "You're just going to give it over, just like that?”
“I’m sitting down and having dinner with you.” He holds the container for me. “Which is all I want, so if I have to give up this, I will. Having dinner with you is the only thing I wanted out of tonight.” I swallow down the lump that has swelled from my chest to my throat and grab the container from him. “I almost opted for pizza,” he says, and I nod my head and smile. "I’ll know for next time."
"Oh, you think there is going to be a next time?" I grab a set of chopsticks and take a piece of broccoli. "That’s cocky of you."
"One can hope," he says, grabbing the sweet and sour chicken. "So now that I know you prefer pizza over Chinese, tell me something else." I just look at him, not sure what else to tell him. He looks up as if he just discovered the best thing in the world. "We should do twenty-one questions."