"Piece of cake, my ass," she grumbled, glaring at me. "You're lucky you didn't break your damn fool head."
"It might be an improvement," I quipped.
"Don't be sassy."
"Yes, ma'am," I answered, smirking.
"And don't 'ma'am' me. You know that makes me feel old," she reprimanded. "Now, tell me about your date with Mr. Handsome."
"How did you know I went out with him?" I asked, chuckling at another title being bestowed on Nathan. It seemed we could only talk about him in adjective terms.
"Darling, did you forget where you live? Plus, your man came in to ask me about restaurants. So, tell me everything. It's been years since I've heard anything spicier than Mitch Hick trying to grope Nancy Lewis during the bake sale. In her dreams, more like it."
I laughed at her words. "There's not much to tell. Nathan wound up having an allergic reaction to the cashews they put on his salad and spent the night in County General Hospital."
"Piss. Not even a kiss?" she asked, sounded highly disappointed.
"Well…" I hemmed and hawed, not sure how much of the kiss in my living room I was willing to share. "He may have kissed me a few times."
"Details. Now," she demanded. She perched herself on the stool behind the counter and waited for me to continue, her eyes sparkling with interest.
"We may have shared probably the hottest kiss of my existence before we left for dinner last night," I admitted, blushing.
"Don't stop now," she encouraged.
"I guess you could say I was unprepared for the sensations it would evoke in me," I admitted, trying to describe it in the most tasteful way possible. Over the last few months, I'd learned that Fran was more frank than any person I'd ever known. Between her and Tressa, my sex life or lack of was public knowledge.
"Honey, I could have told you he'd be a good kisser. I could tell just looking at him and listening to him that he knows how to treat a woman right."
"He's such a contradiction," I admitted, sinking on the spare stool behind the counter.
"In what way?"
"At times he seems every bit his age—sophisticated, mature, in control—but when he lets his guard down, he seems years younger. It's as if he grew up too quick and forgot to have fun," I mused.
"Don't fool yourself. You're the spitting image of what you just described your young man as. It happens sometimes to those who have suffered great loss or faced circumstances no child should ever have to face," she said, looking knowingly at me.
"Are you sure you weren't a shrink in a past lifetime?" I teased.
She snorted at my words. "I could have never tolerated all the bellyaching. Now get back to the kiss and those sensations it 'evoked' in you," she said, repeating my words from earlier.
"Just put it this way. It was toe-curling, mouth-dropping, body-quivering hot."
"That's my kind of kiss. The kind where everything inside you melts away to nothing," she said, gazing out the storefront, lost in memories.
"Exactly," I agreed.
"When are you going to see him again?"
"He's picking me up after work," I admitted.
"Excellent," she said, rubbing her hands together in glee like she was the one he was picking up.
I smiled at her enthusiasm even though my own stomach was filled with butterflies. I had a good idea where Nathan and I would wind up that night, and I couldn't help being nervous about it. After our failed attempts thus far, it seemed destined that when we finally consummated our relationship, it wouldn't live up to the expectations. I couldn't help worrying that he would find me less adequate than the usual women he hooked up with. When our relationship was supposed to be a one-night stand, I at least was comforted by the idea that I wouldn't have to see him in the morning. As things stood now, I would have to face the shame if he found the sex subpar.
I was grateful that I at least had the day to gather myself. As fate would have it though, the afternoon flew by, and before I knew it, Fran was flipping the "open" sign over to "closed."
"You have fun tonight," she said to me with a glint in her eyes as I deposited her at her front door.