“What are you doing here?” I blurted out, a chip half the way to my mouth before I realized and put it back down on the plate.
He gave me a small smile, accepting his drink, something amber in a rocks glass, from the bartender. “I live across the street,” he said simply.
I glanced out the window, despite myself. We were in a nice area. Leaps and bounds nicer than mine, and mine was decent. Dr. Chase Hudson had some serious cash. “Oh,” I breathed the word out, looking down at my food.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, swirling his drink, but not actually drinking it.
“See the tall blonde guy at the table of women behind me?” I asked.
Chase glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. “Yeah.”
“That's my roommate. He was supposed to be taking me out for dinner and drinks.”
Chase chuckled, shaking his head. “You were right,” he said, sipping his drink, “he is an asshole.”
“I really should have known better,” I smiled, rolling my eyes.
“He really should be treating you better,” he said, looking down at me. “That's the way you should be thinking,” he told me.
I shrugged. “He's just a roommate.”
“He gets the privilege of spending dinner with you and then throws it away,” Chase insisted.
“I think you greatly overestimate my dinner conversation abilities,” I said, attempting levity. He was so god damn intense. It was disconcerting. Sexy as hell. But it put me on edge.
“Who needs talk?” he asked. “He could just look at you.”
Wow. Okay. Alright. So, he just said that.
“He gets to look at me all the time. It's a small apartment.”
“Lucky guy,” he mumbled under his breath, but I made it out anyway, and felt a flutter accompanying it. “So, Ava,” he said, his tone lighter, conversational, “what do you do for a living?”
“Oh,” I said, my brows drawing together. Were we actually going to do the talking thing? If there was one thing, other than the sex thing, that I sucked at, it was the talking thing. “Um... I work in an office.”
His lips twitched, like he knew what the problem was. And maybe, I don't know... found it charming. “What kind of office, babe?”
“Oh, I work at a small non-profit. We try to help get homeless vets up on their feet, reconnect them with worried relatives. That kind of thing.”
“Just a job or something you're passionate about?”
“My uncle was a vet,” I said, realizing it was the first time I told the story outside of my office. “He had PTSD and ran off on his wife and baby... lived on the streets for years before one of his former platoon buddies happened upon him one day and brought him back, made sure he got help.”
“How old were you?”
“Professional curiosity?” I asked, smirking.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, looking down for a moment. “Can we just pretend I'm not... who I am right now? We're just two people at a bar.”
“If we were just two people at the bar,” I said, smiling, “we wouldn't be talking at all.”
He let out a short, dry laugh. “Tell me.”
“I was fifteen. He had been missing for two years.”
“So you knew it was something you wanted to be involved in?”
“Yeah, I guess. My school counselor pushed me toward a career in social work. After I graduated, I tried my hand at a few different jobs. Child services, which was just... too heartbreaking. Then I worked in a drug rehab place which was... too frustrating. Then I came across this job. And it was just... a perfect fit.”
He watched me as I spoke, interested, apt. His hand moved to rest on the back of my chair, not touching me, but there. “You know, you're really...”
“Hey,” Jake's voice broke in from my other side, “don't bother dude. She's not interested.” What? What the hell? Was Jake actually... trying to protect me? Brushing off someone he thought was pestering me? That was so incredibly sweet and unexpected of him. “She's not interested in any one but her sex doctor.”
Well, that was much more Jake-like.
“Shut the hell up, Jake,” I growled, eyes shooting daggers at him. Silently trying to make sure he got the point.
“No, seriously,” Jake said, too cocky or too careless to notice my silent plea for him to go away, “she's like frigid, dude. You don't want her.”
Oh
my
god.
I wanted to just curl up inside myself and die. Right there. Because it was just way too fucking humiliating to live through another moment of it.
Chase leaned forward on the bar, looking at Jake, extending his hand toward him to shake. “Dr. Chase Hudson,” he said, and I could sense Jake stiffen next to me.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Chase said, glancing at me in all my embarrassment, staring down at my hands, my hair falling like a curtain around me to hide my red cheeks and lip biting, “What you just did to her is absolutely fucking unacceptable,” he scolded, and my head jerked up to look between them.
“Dude, I didn't mean any offense...”
“It's not me you should be apologizing to, it's her. Do you have any idea how insensitive that was? Knowing that she is struggling, to rub her face in it in front of someone you thought was a stranger? You need to take better care of her.”
“I'm not her boyfriend or brother, man,” Jake defended himself, but I knew he was starting to feel the guilt.
“No, but I suspect her being here was your idea in the first place. This obviously isn't the kind of thing she's comfortable with. And then you fucking abandon her. Then make fun of her? Who does shit like that? She's in your life. You care about her at all... fucking do better,” he said, throwing money onto the bar then touching my back between my shoulder blades for a brief moment. “Ava,” he said, pausing, waiting for me to look at him. When I did, he gave me a smile, “I will see you Thursday.”
And then he was gone. Walking out the front door, pausing to look, crossing the street, then disappearing into his apartment building.
“Damn, I feel like a chastened eight year old,” Jake said, looking down at me. “Hey, sorry. I know I'm a dick. I shouldn't have... said that shit. I don't know what's wrong with me.”
“It's o...” I trailed off, glancing back toward Chase's apartment building. I could practically hear him telling me not to say it was okay. It wasn't okay. I needed to learn to stand up for myself a little bit. At least with Jake. I put up with way too much shit from him. “Actually,” I said instead, turning to look at him, “it's not okay. Nothing about tonight was okay. Taking me here only to abandon me. Then saying that stuff. It's not okay. And it needs to stop. Especially the talk about my sex life. I mean it. It stops now.”
Jake's brows lowered for a moment before a smile started to play at his lips. “Damn,” he said, nodding, glancing off toward the direction Chase left, “he really is helping you, huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That,” he said, sitting down and reaching for an onion ring. “That attitude. That speech. You never would have told me off in the past. Never. No matter how far I stepped over the line. He's really helping you. That's really great for you.”
He was right. He was really right. After three interactions with Chase, I felt enough confidence to stand my ground a little. Or at least try to. That was progress. That was more progress than I had made in years. “Seriously, though Jake. The talk about my sex life...”
He held up a hand, palm out. “Never again. I mean... not in front of anyone else anymore.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
“You should be thanking that doctor,” he said, grabbing a handful of chips.
I nodded. “How do I thank a guy?” I wondered aloud.
“Guys are easy,” Jake answered. “We don't need flowers and jewelry and fancy dinners. Show up wearing something sexy as fuck and we are happy men.”
I looked at him, smiling a little. “You're a genius.”
The next night after work I took a cab to the fanciest lingerie store I knew of. I also knew because I knew of it, that whatever I ended up picking out was going to cost me a small fortune. But it would be worth it.
For two separate reasons.
One, because it might help bolster my confidence a little. Women supposedly felt sexy wearing new pretty panties and bras and all that stuff. And I was about to be getting undressed in front of someone. I could use all the sexy I could get.
Two, because like Jake said, it was a good way to thank a guy.
The inside of the store was gorgeous. The walls were a crisp, but light, gray. The floors were an immaculate dark wood. There were two large white tables with trays of lacy undies and bras on them. The walls had built-in units with racks of matching bras and panties, garter belts, nighties, even robes. There were two black chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, on over each table. Toward the back were crisp white curtains draping a doorway that led, I imagined, to the changing rooms. Beside the doorway was a discreet gray service desk, a gorgeous redhead standing behind it in a tight black dress. There was slow, sensual classical music playing through hidden speakers and the air was warm, making me shiver coming from the cool outside.