“A few, then dinner,” she says, and makes a face. She’s pulling pins from her hair, then runs a hand through it and shakes it out, falling in loose dark waves past her shoulders.
I. Uh. Fuck.
“Then I’m finally free of all this bullshit,” she says, then wrinkles her nose and glances at the door. “Bull… crap.”
“Linda went home,” I tell her, leaning against my desk. Linda doesn’t exactly have a swear jar or anything—though she probably would if she could get away with it—but she Does Not Approve of cursing and has a whole arsenal of glares to get the point across.
Kat perches on the arm of a chair, kicks her shoes off, nudges them together with her toes. I nearly point out that she’s welcome to sit in the chair the normal way, but she probably knows about chairs, so I don’t say anything.
Instead, I say, “You look nice,” which is such a fucking understatement.
“Thanks. It’s a nice place,” she says.
“La Cabaña is an okay place,” I say, because it’s true, and because I’m not giving Meckler credit if I don’t have to.
“Look who’s a restaurant critic,” she teases.
“I’m not saying it isn’t good. I’m saying don’t be too impressed.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” she says, still wiggling her toes against the carpet. They’re painted deep red. I wonder if she ever paints her fingernails. She sighs and tilts her head back, looking at my ceiling. Her hair swishes back. I look at the sharpness of her jaw from this angle, the line of her throat, the curve of her neck. None of it’s helping.
“You really do look good,” I say, and my voice is lower now.
“Thanks,” she says, head still tilted back. “It’s just armor, you know. And camouflage. The more I look like I’m supposed to, the less anyone notices me.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, because I can’t imagine not noticing Kat. Even when I didn’t like her, I noticed. I resented that I noticed, but I always did.
“You nervous?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says, and gives me a half-smile. “Have you even met me?”
“You could stand him up.”
Kat snorts.
“And let him win? No. I want to—”
She stops, and I wait a moment.
“Watch him crawl?” I ask, voice going even lower. I glance at the door, hoping no one can hear us.
“I regret telling you that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re way too taken with it,” she says. “You know I didn’t mean it literally.”
I think she did. The way she said it is carved into my brain: her sharp, dark eyes; how she nearly whispered; how it sent a chill down my spine.
“I just liked the way you sounded when you said it,” I tell her instead.
“How was that?”
“Angry,” I say. “Dangerous.”
She bites her lip like she’s trying not to smile.
“I think it would be too weird if he crawled across the floor of the restaurant,” she says. “I’d settle for an apology.”