I closed my mouth.
He stared at me.
I took a step back and he dropped his hand. I wondered if I should inhale more spinach so I could actually choke to death so I’d be put out of my misery. It would be so much easier than standing here in front of him and having him think I was bursting from my cocoon as a mentally disabled giraffe. I turned to pick up my phone and wallet, wanting to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t believe it’d gotten this far. I felt punchy and maybe my eyes burned a bit. I didn’t know. I just wanted to leave.
“Paul,” Vince said, his voice kind.
“What?” I grumbled.
“Where you going?”
“Back to work. I have work to do.”
“Wanna have lunch with me?”
I would have your babies if you asked. “I’m kind of busy.” That, and the fact that I suddenly couldn’t get the image out of my head of that twinkie Eric grinding up against him or of Bear Dude grabbing a handful of his ass and Vince seeming to enjoy it while I hid in the shadows of my tower.
“Paul,” he tried again.
“What?” I snapped at him. I was way outside my comfort zone. I didn’t talk well with people I didn’t know, and even worse, hot guys I didn’t know. I felt awkward, and I’d already made an ass out of myself in front of him. In addition, my best friend had queened out and basically threatened to disembowel him if he hurt me, like we were dating or something. Talk about embarrassing. He probably feels sorry for me and wants to make me his project.
He looked kind of glum. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, almost pouting. He saw me watching and unbelievably, stuck out his bottom lip and sighed forlornly, playing the hurt up so well that Helena would have been proud.
“Oh, no,” I told him. “You don’t get to do stuff like that, looking the way you do. That’s not fair.”
He grinned. Dimples returned. I wanted to poke them. “And how do I look?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to feed your ego. Your obvious narcissism looks good enough for the both of us.”
“My what?” he asked, his smile never fading, but a look of confusion coming over his eyes.
“Never mind,” I muttered.
“You know,” he said, turning serious, “there’s a saying that once you save someone’s life, that you’re responsible for it. It’s an old… African chant.”
I gaped at him. “African?”
He nodded. “From Africa.”
“That’s a Chinese proverb. Not an African chant.”
“What’s Chinese?” he asked, further confused.
“What you said about saving someone’s life. That’s Chinese.”
He shrugged. “I don’t speak Asian. I want to go there, though. One day.”
“To Asia?”
He nodded.
“Where in Asia?”
“The Asian places,” he explained, dead serious. “I’ve always wondered if the fortune cookies taste different there.”
Kinda what I thought. Very, very pretty, but not exactly bursting with brains. I didn’t know if that made me feel better or not. “Fortune cookies,” I said slowly.
He nodded. “You know, those cookies that have the little pieces of paper in them? Sometimes they just give you numbers for some reason, but other times you get ones that say things, like, ‘Your beauty helps make the world go round.’”
“You got a fortune cookie that told you you’re beautiful?”
He nodded. “It was kind of weird, but I just rolled with it. I seem to get those a lot for some reason.”
“Maybe because you’re beautiful?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself.
Vince grinned at me and blushed a little. So unfair. “You think I’m beautiful?”
I winced. “That wasn’t what I meant to say.”
“Oh, so you don’t think that.”
I blushed. “It’s not… ugh. Shut up.”
His smile widened before he narrowed his eyes and scowled toward the front of the restaurant. “Was that your boyfriend?” he growled.
The conversation felt like the equivalent of whiplash. “My what now?”
“That guy. Who kissed you. That you spit on. You seem to do that a lot, by the way. Was that your boyfriend?”
“Sandy?” I said incredulously. “No! Er. No. That’s my best friend. You’ve seen him before. We’re not dating. We’re not together. I mean, we tried it once, but it didn’t work out. I kissed him yesterday just to make sure, and there was nothing.”
His scowl turned to me. “You kissed him yesterday?”