Perfect Strangers

17

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a veterinarian,” says James, withdrawing slightly to smile down into my eyes. “Does that count?”

“So you’re an animal lover along with everything else. Great.”

“Why do you sound disappointed?”

“I’m trying to find a fatal flaw for insurance.”

“Insurance? Against what?”

I open my mouth but stop myself before blurting, Against falling in love with you. Instead I give him a mysterious smile.

“I forgot,” he says, examining my face. “We’re not getting personal.”

“Although you made an oopsie a second ago by telling me you wanted to be a vet as a kid.”

“We better talk terms over dinner so I don’t put my foot in my mouth again. I need to know what the ground rules are.” His gaze drops to my mouth.

When he just keeps staring at my lips, I start to get self-conscious. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about fruit-to-body-part comparisons right now.”

He says gruffly, “I’m thinking about how much I want to kiss you, and how much I also don’t want the first time we kiss to be ten steps away from a toilet.”

That sends a little thrill straight through me. I love how he says what’s on his mind without any attempt to hide it or dress it up.

This man is very good for my ego. Very good, indeed.

Smiling and much calmer than before, I flatten my hands over his hard pecs. “Hold that thought until we get through dinner. If I don’t get something to eat soon, you won’t be able to kiss me at all because I’ll be hauled away to jail for gnawing on all the furniture.”

His eyes warm and his smile indulgent, James brushes his thumb over my lower lip. “And here I thought I was the reason you were feeling light headed.”

I grin at him. “Nope. Hypoglycemia is the culprit, my friend.”

We both conveniently ignore the fact that I told him not even ten minutes ago about his effect on my nervous system.

He turns and leads me by the hand out of the restroom, holding it tight even after we’re sitting down at the table and have started on our drinks.

7

W

e end

up closing the place down.

We eat, drink, laugh, and talk until we’re the last ones in the restaurant and the wait staff are clustered near the kitchen doors, collectively glowering in our direction.

Not that I care. I’m having the best time I’ve had in years. I never want the night to end.

I say, “Ugh, I can’t believe you like Hemingway! He’s so unbearably macho.”

I’m rolling my eyes but smiling as I lick from my spoon the last morsel of a delicious chocolate mousse we shared. James ordered no less than four different desserts, because I couldn’t decide on just one.

“And I can’t believe you’re such a literary snob,” James shoots back. “Macho or not, the man was a genius. Look at his legacy. Look at his body of work—”

“Genius? Please. He was a bully and a braggart and wrote some of the worst fake biblical prose ever to hit the market. ‘I am thee and thou art me…’ What bullshit. Combine his love of three word sentences with a pathological aversion to adverbs and the man is insufferable. I can’t believe he’s still being taught in schools.”

“Do you object more to his writing style or to his personal character? Because you have to separate the artist from his work. Otherwise we’d have to burn every Picasso. Now that was an arrogant asshole.”

I nod in agreement. “A womanizer, too. Like Hemingway.”

James shrugs. “Many famous and successful men are. Imagine having beautiful women constantly wanting to sleep with you—”

“I’m straight, but thanks,” I interrupt drily.

“—literally throwing themselves at you day and night. A man would have to be a saint to resist that kind of temptation.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what I thought about you the first time I saw you. Every woman in the café had a spontaneous orgasm when you walked in.”

He scoffs. “You’re exaggerating again.”

“If I am, it’s only a teeny bit. Even some of the men looked at you like they wanted to lick you from head to toe.”

When his expression sours, I laugh. “C’mon, James, don’t be modest. You must know how gorgeous you are.”

He pauses for a moment, staring at me in a strange, weighted silence. Then he drops his gaze to his empty bourbon glass and says darkly, “Only on the outside.”

A tremor of recognition passes through me. It’s the same feeling I had when I looked at his portraits. The animal sense of awareness of one’s own tribe.

Birds of a feather flock together. Though we’re still not much more than strangers, I know intuitively that he and I are alike.

Suffering is the great equalizer of humankind.

I recall him standing there surrounded by admiring women at the party, looking miserable and alone, and how oblivious he was to all the stares he received walking into the café, and realize with a jolt that this is a man for whom most other people have ceased to exist.

The happy ones, anyway. The normal ones who still have light in their eyes.

It’s only people like me he can see or connect with. People submerged in their own darkness, the way he’s submerged in his.

I say urgently, “Whatever bad thing happened to you, it hasn’t made you less beautiful. There’s beauty in darkness, too. It just takes a different kind of vision to see it.”

When he lifts his head and looks at me, the anguish in his eyes pierces my heart. His lips part. For a moment we simply stare at each other, our surroundings forgotten.