“Well, you shouldn’t. What about you? Are you dating anyone?”
Did I really just say that?
“No, I am most certainly not involved,” he said.
The energy between us felt so intense that it was like something I could reach out and grab. The whole right side of my body where we were touching felt electrified—hot and sizzling, though I knew that was just my mind playing tricks on me. I felt a warm happiness spreading in my chest when he said that he wasn’t involved with anyone, and even though our glasses were empty, I held up mine up, waited till he picked up his own, then clinked them together.
“Cheers to that,” I said.
When I got home, I called Caroline. I’d still felt fairly buzzed when we left the bar, so I let Ian drive me to my place, then he caught a cab home. He’d walked me up to my door, and I thought that maybe he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached out and lightly squeezed my upper arm.
“Thanks for the great evening,” he said. “Make sure you drink some water. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It felt a little like walking on air as I stumbled into my apartment and found my phone. “You won’t believe where I just was,” I said when Caroline answered.
“Where?” she said. “Don’t make me guess. I’ve had a really long day.”
“I was at that bar, The Knock. You’ve been there before, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, once or twice. Once with that guy, Derek. It’s a little . . . upscale for my tastes, though. Or maybe not upscale—pretentious? I do remember that everyone there was like a supermodel or something. That made me feel great.”
“You’re just as gorgeous as any of them,” I said. “More so.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, even if it is untrue. So you went to The Knock? Who with?”
“Ian.”
“Your boss?” I could hear the surprise in her voice.
“Yeah. He randomly asked me at the end of the day today.”
“Wow. How’d that go?”
“It was all right.” I thought back to sitting there next to him at the bar, feeling his knee resting lightly against mine, how exciting I had found that to be. Caroline was my best friend, yes, but even still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her this small but important detail. It sounded rather pathetic, even to me, even though I was the one who had found it so thrilling. “It was almost like an extended job interview or something. He was asking me all these questions.”
“Yeah? Like what?
“Like . . . how I was enjoying the job so far, and what sorts of things I liked to do, and whether or not I was seeing anyone.”
Caroline was quiet for a moment, and then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Daisy,” she said.
“What?” I asked when she didn’t say anything after that.
“Daisy. I love you; you know this. But sometimes you can be so dense! Especially when it has to do with men! He is interested in you!”
I felt my heartbeat accelerate when she said that and a warmness rise in my cheeks. If I were to look in the mirror right now, my face would probably be red.
“I don’t think so,” I said, glad that we were just talking on the phone and not in person. Did my voice sound different? Did I sound a little . . . giddy? I cleared my throat. “You should see what he looks like, Caro. He’s gorgeous. Like, he totally fit into the scene at The Knock; me, not so much.”
“That’s bullshit, and he obviously is interested in you if he took you out and is asking you all these questions! Why else would he be doing all this? There’s no other reason.”
She sounded so sure of herself that I could almost believe her. Part of me wanted to believe her. But another part of me didn’t want to have anything to do with any guy, not after the way thing with Noah had gone.
“And I know what you’re thinking,” Caroline continued, “I know that you’re thinking that you don’t want to do this because you don’t want him to turn out to be some psycho like Noah was, but I’m telling you—not all guys are like that.”
I smiled. “Well . . . yeah, that is kind of why I don’t want to think too hard about this. Also, I just can’t really fathom the idea how someone like that could be interested in me. He’s older, too.”
“Like how much?”