“Thanks,” he says as I put my slightly damp bare foot into his warm, strong hands and try not to think about how gross I am. “On three. One. Two —"
“Eeeee!”
I don’t mean to make that sound as he lifts me, but I do. I grab onto the concrete ledge of the rather small window and, without thinking too much, stick my head through and my upper body follows until half of me is sticking out, into the alleyway behind The Tipsy Cavalier, and half of me is still in the men’s bathroom.
I could think about the fact that Mister Handsome Dimpleface might be looking up my skirt, but I choose not to. Instead I put all thoughts of dignity aside and very, very carefully scootch until I’ve got one knee through the window, then the other, my whole body balanced sideways in this precarious position.
Then I take a deep breath and flail toward the ground, feet-first.
By God, I almost make it, only I stumble a little as I land and wind up on the asphalt, one knee roughed up but otherwise fine.
“You all right?” he calls.
“Fine!” I call back, getting to my feet.
“I’m tossing your shoes over,” he says, and a moment later, my boots come out.
As I’m putting them back on, he appears, head first, then maneuvers himself around properly and drops lightly to the ground like it’s nothing.
Then he looks at me and grins.
“That was something,” he says, and I can hear the relief in his voice. “God, I thought we’d be in there for — your knee is bleeding.”
I look down at it. I’m scratched up, but it’s no big deal. There’s, like, one drop of blood.
“My landing sucked,” I say. “I’m fine.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, and before I know it, he’s on one knee in front of me, two light fingers on my shin as he examines the scrape.
I bite my lip as nervousness spikes through me. Nervousness and something else that spikes as I look down at the top of his head, watch his big, gentle hands as his fingers just barely graze my skin.
Without warning, I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Whether he’d be gentle like this or a little rough, what his stubble would feel like on my face, whether he’d pull away early and leave me breathless, wanting more —
“I didn’t think it was that far down,” he says, apologetically.
“It wasn’t,” I say, with a quick laugh. “It’s no big deal. Really.”
“Still, I’m sorry,” he says, and then he stands.
Right in front of me.
Like, eight inches away. The buffalo stampede in my chest is going over a cliff.
“Listen, it was a trying time,” I say, trying to make a joke. “We’re lucky we made it out alive.”
That gets a smile and the smile gets dimples and the dimples get a skipped heartbeat from yours truly.
“You’re right, we’ve been through a lot together,” he says. “Thalia, right?”
I blink in surprise, then frown slightly.
“Is that some pickup artist trick?” I ask, breathless. “You somehow find out a girl’s name without asking her and then you use it in some kind of neurolinguistic —”
“Your friend shouted it through the door,” he says.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, feeling like an idiot.
“Of course,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
He just looks at me, half amused and half expectant, and I find myself staring at his lips, his jaw, the way that his hair is just a little too long and curls against his neck —
“If you want, I could tell you mine,” he says.
I’m not having a smart day, am I?
“I think this story’s better if I simply refer to you as my mysterious bathroom stranger,” I tease.
“It might be,” he concedes. “But we’re out of the bathroom now, and I’d rather ruin the mysterious stranger part.”
“Don’t tell me you’re about to hand me a copy of your memoir.”
“No, just ask you on a date,” he says, and the smile is back and the dimples are back. “I’ve got tickets to the sculpture show at the Botanic Gardens for tonight, and my brother just backed out.”
“Light Cantatas?” I ask, surprised. I tried to get tickets last week, but it closes tonight and everything was sold out.
“That’s it,” he says. “If you really want, you can keep calling me a mysterious stranger, but it seems like that could get burdensome when you’re telling your friends what a great time we had.”
I laugh despite myself.
“Hold on,” I say. “You’re making a lot of assumptions. What if I have a terrible time?”
“So you’re saying yes.”
“That was a trap,” I say, still laughing.
“No, that bathroom was a trap,” he says. “This is me asking you on a date where I may or may not tell you my name, according to your wishes.”
“Even if my wishes are —”