“Well, I work in healthcare IT, and what I do right now is work on a large project for one of the state governments, making sure that their old medical records program for children who get health insurance is compliant with new federal guidelines.”
He nodded. Made an expression with his mouth that indicated that it was interesting and then said, “You lost me at children’s health insurance...” and he grinned.
She said, “Enough about my job. What do you do? You’re a firefighter, right? So you pretty much save damsels in distress from burning buildings and rescue cats out of trees. I don’t have to really know more than that,” she teased.
He laughed, bright teeth gleaming, straight and perfect, speaking to orthodontia decades ago. His eyes twinkled a bit as he fingered his empty sake glass and said “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you got the gist of it.”
“Aw, come on. Tell me more. How is it more complicated? Are there, like, different levels of fire fighting?” The words came out of her mouth and she felt a slow, electric feeling creep up her spine as his fingers crossed the table and reached for hers, his fingers clasping hers, the warmth shaking her, going all the way up her neck, through her hips, into her belly.
Rendering her completely speechless once again.
“Well,” he said, peering down at her hands and then looking at her with raised eyebrows that asked an obvious question. She grinned back. He softened and clinched her hand just slightly more, and the added pressure was like having her hand turn into one big giant throbbing clitoris.
“I do plenty of shifts where I rescue cats from burning buildings and help damsels in distress out of trees,” he joked, “but mostly, these days, I am in charge of fire management safety protocols for large corporations like yours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, pretty much. After 9/11, we had to really tighten up on how you empty out a thirty or forty floor building, especially in the face of a disaster, or in the face of massive, multi-level, widespread fires.”
She could feel the blood drain out of her face. He had just, without knowing, dredged up her biggest fear. Something in his face said that he knew it. “Oh, no, I am so sorry, really, I did not mean to upset you. Did you lose someone in 9/11?”
She shook her head. “No, no, actually I, it’s just that...” She took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “It’s just that it is one of my biggest fears. I’ve always been afraid of a fire in my building, and I work on the thirty-second floor of Stohlman Industries.”
He took his hand away from hers and whacked his forehead repeatedly, shaking his head now, saying “I pretty much just picked the worst possible thing I could bring up during a first date, didn’t I?”
Her heart rate resumed a normal beat. She took a risk now and reached across the table to retrieve his hand and said, “No, it’s ok, really, if nothing else, it’s interesting that you managed to tap into that about me, after having only known me for...” she glanced at her smart phone “...for fifteen minutes.”
“It’s amazing what Google will help you figure out.”
If she had had a drink in her mouth, she would have spit it all over him. Oh, my God, did he Google her? It’s only fair —she had Googled him. Did he know that she had Googled him? Was there some way he could have known?
“Laura?” He reached out and touched her chin, tipping it up to catch her eyes. “That was a joke.”
By the time the waitress brought his meal, which was something that he could not only not pronounce properly, but, by the looks of it, couldn’t even guess at about half the ingredients in it, he felt like he was losing her. Idiot, idiot, idiot! How could he have brought up the burning building scenario on a first date? Within fifteen minutes, no less? God, the look on her face! It was like something collapsed. There was more to it than she was telling; he could see that and it left him with too many questions, inquiries he couldn’t make right now because he was being too stupid for words.
Yet here he was, babbling on about it like it was no big deal, and that’s what he did for a living, and ha ha ha, and here she was, you know, in charge of saving little kids’ health insurance.
She began to eat her food. He dug into his. Even though he didn’t like it, he welcomed the silence, perplexed by the contradiction, but lately his entire life seemed to be one big steaming pile of complexity. He watched her. He took the dinner as an opportunity to just keep an eye on her. To see what she was like. To see what her body language would give away.
She kept pulling on the shoulder of her sweater, correcting everything so that the edge of her black silk bra wouldn’t show, and every time she did it, a little part of him tugged. Mostly in the crotch area. But also in his heart. Because, man, was he lovin’ that little piece of black lace right now.