I pressed my lips together and pummeled him with a single French-fry. He started to laugh, obviously unable to contain himself, and my face flamed.
“You know what I mean.” I didn’t look at him; rather I stared at my basket of Italian beef and seasoned fries.
He stopped laughing but not all at once; he allowed it to taper off gradually. I glanced at him through my eyelashes; a huge smile still asserted itself over his features and he was looking at me with a sanguine, untroubled expression.
He looked happy.
My heart fluttered- yes, fluttered- uncontrollably. The flutter morphed into a flapping monsoon as I watched his smile fade from broad to slight and his gaze darken, intensify, and scorch.
“You’re so beautiful.” It was said on a sigh, as though he said and thought the sentiment at the same time and hadn’t quite realized the words had been spoken aloud.
I felt the compliment acutely, like the spike in your senses when you smell pepper, but in a slightly scary and thrilling way. I lifted my head and blinked at him, my mouth slightly agape. His eyes traveled over my lips, hair, neck, then lower. I noticed he was holding his napkin as though someone might be inclined to steal it.
He, also, seemed to be greedy for details.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and rubbed my neck. Everywhere his eyes moved itched and tingled.
I cleared my throat, “You too.”
He met my gaze, studied me, his smile still slight; “It’s different with you; it’s not just the way you look.”
In a surprising turn of events, the comment on my inner beauty made me squirm to a much greater degree than the compliment aimed at my physical features. I wasn’t so sure that inner,Janie was at all a beautiful person. Jem’s words from last night; the apparent callous disinterestedness with which I regarded the end of my relationship with Jon, my unwillingness to help my sister in her time of need, had me doubting whether I was anything other than a selfish and vapid replica of my mother.
“Are you admitting your beauty is only skin deep?” I titled my head to the side, wanting to tease him rather than dwell on how high, scale from one to ten, I would rank on the vapid-meter.
He breathed in through his nose, his eyebrows lifted, his attention shifted to his hands; Quinn loosened his grip on the napkin, began twisting it between his thumb and forefinger.
He didn’t respond. I took his silence as confirmation.
“I think you’re wrong.”
He continued to twist the napkin wordlessly until it began to resemble a short length of rope or a thick length of parn (paper + yarn = parn).
I considered him at length. There was still a lot I didn’t know about Quinn and, therefore, I deliberated the possibility that he was right. He could be a virtually empty shell of a person with a stunning façade, impressive intellect, and a foil wit.
Then, I frowned because the prospect felt dissonant with reality.
“No… you are a good guy.” I tilted my head to the side, allowed my gaze to move over his lips, hair, neck, then lower to where his heart beat. “We see the strengths and faults in others that we do not or cannot recognize in ourselves.”
“Janie...” His small smile, more of a grimace, struck me as brittle when our eyes finally met.
“Are you trying to scare me off?”
He nodded his head but, on a sigh, replied, “No.”
“Do you have any current nefarious plans? Are you plying me with Italian beef as part of an evil plot? Is this,” I motioned between us, “an elaborate lie? Are you planning to lure me into a false sense of security, have your way with me, light me up, then toss me aside like a match or a Christmas tree?”
His face was serious, “No.”
“Then why do you believe that you lack internal beauty?”
“Because I only do things for selfish reasons.”
“Like dating me?”
“Dating you is completely selfish.”
The comment struck me momentarily mute but I quickly recovered, “If- if- if you were being selfish then you’d still be a Wendell and I’d be a slamp.”
He shook his head; “If you were a slamp then we wouldn’t be exclusive and you could be with other people.”
“And that makes you selfish…?”
“That makes me selfish.” his eyes pierced me, and his voice was low and sandpapery.
I took the opportunity to munch on a french-fry, now cold, and deliberate his words.
“I will say this,” Quinn held me with his eyes, his expression increasing in severity as though hovering on the precipice of a meaningful confession, “You make me want to be less of an asshole.”
My lashes flapped at him, “Really? … wow.” I gulped.