Kissing My Dad's Friend

“We both helped each other out over the years,” Carlos concedes. “But without this guy, I wouldn’t have any of this.” He gestures around him at the rooftop, and my smile softens. I cast a glance toward Russ, my heart swelling.

Another way he’s helped the world. Done real good and made real changes. “Well. I can’t say I’m surprised,” I admit softly, which makes Carlos chuckle and Russ shake his head. “He’s a do-gooder if I ever met one, though he’ll never admit it.”

“She knows you well,” Carlos says, with a grin for his friend. “I can see why you’re so into her.”

There’s a faint thunking sound, probably as Russ kicks Carlos under the table. I can’t help it. I laugh lightly. With that, Carlos slaps the table and slides back out of the booth. “You kids have fun,” he says as he heads away. “And don’t mind me. I’m just here to provide the sustenance.”

But sustenance turns out to be really underselling it. Every course we’re served is more delicious than the last. And I have to admit, once I taste them, the emojis make more sense. This one does taste like an explosion emoji, and another one like a shooting star.

Every so often, Carlos stops back by our table with a funny story about Russ from their younger years. It’s cool to talk to someone who knows this other side of Russ, the one he hides from everybody else. It makes me feel like I’m seeing sides to him nobody else does. Like he’s letting me past his walls.

And to judge by the way Carlos keeps teasing him about it, I guess Russ has mentioned me to his friends. Or at least to the ones he can get away with mentioning me to, since they don’t run in Mom and Dad’s social circles. That means something, right?

Though what, exactly, I can’t tell. But I tell myself it doesn’t matter. For tonight, this one night, I’m just going to enjoy the feeling.

For one night, Russ isn’t my father’s best friend, the forbidden older man, a possibly terrible idea. Tonight, he’s just Russ, and I’m just Maggie. Two people on a date. Two people eating great food, cooked by a funny, interesting friend.

Two people who could maybe really be something, in the right circumstances. Given the right timing.

At some point during dinner, Russ hooks his legs around mine. A moment later, his hand comes to rest on my knee, searing hot beneath the table. I inch my leg higher between his, and I’m rewarded with a flash of heat in his eyes, a serious, straightforward stare that tells me just how much he’s looking forward to getting me alone later.

By the time the meal finishes, as fun as it’s been, I can’t wait to get out of here either. Russ spends most of dessert teasing me, murmuring comments about how good the dessert would taste licked off my skin, or tracing his fingertips along my inner thigh, his touch light enough and hot enough at the same time that it drives me wild with desire.

We bicker with Carlos about the bill for a while—he wants to comp us the whole meal, and Russ finally settles for hiding a huge tip underneath our final dessert plates—and then we slip out together, back into the unmarked mystery elevator down to the ground floor.

Since most other people seem to only just be arriving by the time we finish—I gather it’s more of a late night spot here, and I can see why, as the city view lights up around us—we have the elevator down to ourselves. The moment the doors glide shut, Russ slides around to pin me against the corner wall, his hands grasping my hips and pulling them against his, his mouth crushing mine in a hard, deep kiss. My ruby red lipstick is long gone, thanks to dinner, and I’m grateful for it. It lets me kiss him back with abandon. When his lips leave mine, I kiss along his jaw, savoring the way his rough stubble grazes my cheek on the way past. At his neck, I gently nip his skin, just hard enough to make it sting a little. He groans and grinds his hips against mine.

“Fuck, Maggie. You don’t know how hard it was to sit inches from you all night without touching you.”

“I don’t know. You managed to touch me a little bit…” I point out with a sly grin. “At least enough to leave me aching for more.”

His eyes find mine once more. “Believe me. That was nothing compared to the way I’m going to touch you tonight.”

My breath hitches in my chest. “Tonight…”

“Oh, we’re not done.” He tilts his head, eyes dancing. “You haven’t visited my apartment yet, Maggie. And I intend to thoroughly enjoy you in every single room of it.”