Perfectly Unmatched (7 page)

But I don’t go directly to the lake, like I intended. My feet take me down a vaguely familiar path that’s tugging at me like an eager puppy on a long leash.

When I get to the young professor’s hovel of an apartment, I pick up a few pieces of loose gravel and toss them at his window. I guess I could just as easily walk up to his door and knock, but something about tossing the rocks feels a little crazier, and I’m so in the mood for anything not quite sensible right now.

The light shines from his window, and I can make out the shape of him moving in the shadowy interior, so I pick up another handful of pebbles and throw with a little more effort. This time one of the window panes sounds like it may have cracked, and the window swings open.
Cormac sticks his head out, a pair of dark, square glasses on his face.

He looks nerdy.

But kind of adorable.

His dark hair sticks up at weird angles and he’s a few shades short of sleepy, like I woke him up before he dozed over his latest batch of translations.

“Benelli?” He pulls his glasses off fast, like he’s embarrassed that I caught him in them. “I...I thought you said you had a date tonight? Construction foreman, associates in business, nice calves?” He says the last words in that dry, completely unimpressed way that makes a laugh start low in my throat and bubble out of my mouth.

“It winds up his calves weren’t all that impressive. Do you want to go walking? Maybe grab a bite?”

I probably wouldn’t have been able to eat all that much in the dress I wore tonight even if Akos didn’t piss me off, but, as it was, I wound up eating next to nothing, and my stomach is lurching and growling.

“Of course.
That would be...yes, that would be brilliant. Could you wait just a minute? My research clothing isn’t fit for the civilized public.” He pulls his head back into the room, then pops back out. “I was thinking of wearing shorts tonight. I warn you; I have fantastic calves. Truly awesome, amazing calves.”

“Really?”
I do my best not to smile at him, but it’s easier attempted than done. “So are you a jogger?”

“Cyclist,” he corrects.
“Unicyclist. And sometimes snowboarder. Maybe, actually, only once on the snowboarder thing. But I can’t stand for you to picture me on a unicycle without a cooler image of me to compete for space in your brain. Right. Um, I’ll be down in a second.”

I bounce on the balls of my feet, ready to see him, ready to walk around with him and tell him about
Akos and the other guys and get his take on all of this craziness.

Or, better yet, maybe we won’t talk about any guys or any dates. Maybe we’ll just talk about Greek myths and desserts and the moon and stories from when we were kids.
Hopefully.

He bursts out the door, throwing his hood up over his head as he walks to me.

And I’m shocked to feel this tiny little flutter low down in my gut, where only the best and sweetest flutters ever wave their wings.

He’s not drop-dead gorgeous like
Akos, who’s all chiseled lines and dark, brooding strength.

Cormac
is more cute. In that scruffy, mad-professor way. He does have wildly gorgeous eyes, though. To die for eyes. They’re a kind of light green with darker green right around the pupil, and they crinkle on the sides from all the smiling he does. And he has a good mouth, with firm, kissably-shaped lips. I have a hard time picturing his mouth being still, because he’s always talking or laughing or grinning at me. Never kissing me though.

Sadly.

Also, he laughs all the time, rattly and deep from inside his chest. That may be my absolute favorite thing about him.

“So, I’m sorry about the calf let-down.” His voice is brisk, which is so nice after a long series of dates with slow-talking attempted-seducers. He loops an arm around my shoulders gently and leads me down the street. “But, I have to say, I’m a little glad. I found this Hungarian-Thai fusion place...don’t laugh now. All my sources say it’s absolutely amazing, and I was dying of hunger, but didn’t want to be the sad professor eating all alone at the bar, and I was too lazy to look up and see if they delivered. And then, there you were like an angel of dinner under my window.”

He smells like the pages of books, ink, and tea leaves. And, under all those comforting smells, he also smells like guy. It’s a salty, clean smell mixed with the tingling pang of aftershave that makes my girly hormones spin in excited pirouettes, and I turn my head in my hood so I can discreetly press my nose closer to his shoulder and inhale that perfect aroma.

“I’m glad you were around,” I admit. “I know we just talked the other night, but I missed you.”

“Stop,” he demands, frowning. “You’re going to lead me on and make me fall completely in love with you, even if I know for a fact that it’s absolutely hopeless.”

I punch his arm softly, surprised by the tough bulge of muscle under the thin sleeve of his jacket.

“Flattery will get you nowhere. But hand me your phone,” I order, and I totally ignore my slightly sweaty palm and jittery fingers when I type my number in. “Now call me.”

He fumbles for a second, but makes the call, and I program his name in as he peers over my shoulder.

“Sir Sexy Calves? I like it.” That deep laugh jangles around me and sends a shiver of pleasure up and down my spine. “I’m relieved to have your number now. This town can be a dangerous place for a dreamy grad student who knows very little Hungarian. I wish you’d been there to help me post a letter this morning. I’m afraid my grandmother will not be getting a card with several oily naked men on it. She so would have loved ogling it, so it’s a particular shame it will never reach her greedy hands.”

“Did you really send your grandma a card like that?” My eyes bulge from shock, and I picture my own grandmother with her severe, permanent frown, who would
not
think a card like that would be appropriate or funny. I always send her something sappy with lots of embossed flowers on the front for her birthday.

“My grandmother would box my ears if I tried to send her a card with a cat or a bouquet on it. And I only
think
I sent it, after all. The postmaster was pretty irritated by the time we were through, so those handsome men with all their oily muscles may have been deposited into the incinerator when I left.”

He stops in front of a small, questionable-looking facade that leads into a dark restaurant. An eager-looking man with a huge smile and dark, shiny hair leaps up and asks us to have a seat in broken Hungarian. He brings us menus, takes our drink order, and smiles like his face will crack in half.

Cormac tries to study his menu seriously, but the man’s smile is completely contagious. Cormac is smiling at the glossy menu pages, and I’m smiling at him over the top of my menu, and I feel perfectly content in this dark, cozy restaurant with him.

When the waiter returns,
Cormac busts out some truly awful Hungarian and haltingly orders us an appetizer of fritters and a Hungarian schnitzel plate for himself, and I order the vegetable pad thai.

“You speak Hungarian beautifully. I assume. I mean, it sounds lovely. I have no real
clue what you’re saying. Or maybe I do. Did you order ox hearts with lemons?” He opens my straw for me and dunks it in my cup.

“Thank you. My grandmother lived with us when we were young, and we were only allowed to speak Hungarian at home. It freaked my parents
out, because they were positive we’d wind up idiots at English. But it worked out. We’re only half-idiots at both.” I take a long sip of my soda and sigh. “Wine would be so nice right now.”

“Oh, we can do wine later. I have a plan.” He
winks, one green eye scrunched shut and opened again after a few seconds. I feel a weird, warm blush burst up from my chest. “So, your parents are native to Hungary?”

“
Mmmhmm. My father was given a share of his father’s business to take overseas when he was a teenager. He met my mother in Hungary, and they married really young.”

“Arranged, I presume?” He leans back, and I notice just how wide his shoulders are. I know he was joking about how great his calves are, but those shoulders give me a tickle low down in my throat.

It takes a minute to clear my head and answer him. “Arranged? No. They definitely did not have an arranged marriage. It’s kind of a funny story, actually. My father was supposed to marry a local man’s daughter, basically because she was the heiress to her dad’s logging business. But a fair came through, and my mother’s family owned the carnival rides, and he met her when she sold him tickets. It was, like, this instant romance.”

“Really?”
He opens his mouth to ask something more, but the fritters arrive, and he thanks the waiter, and prepares a little plate carefully, which he passes to me.

“Thank you.” I take a bite of the crispy breaded cauliflower and love the tastes in my mouth. Almost as much as I love the quiet, sweet way
Cormac takes care of me on this non-date.

“So, if that had been my parents’ story, I would have been mooning around every fair that came through, gazing into ticket booth windows and hanging around at the
Waltzer--”

“The
Waltzer?” I ask, and he pops a crunchy piece of broccoli in his mouth and presses some kind of peanut-based dipping sauce my way. I dip and eat, imaging a fair where couples waltz in slow circles, like in movies based on Jane Austen books.

“Uh, you know it, the ride with the cars you sit in and the platform comes up and you
kinda spin.” He uses his hands and some of the broccoli to illustrate.

“Oh. You mean The Tilt-A-Whirl.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Did you take all the girls on the,
er, Waltzer when the fair came through, Sir Sexy Calves?”

Cormac
chuckles. “If I could have gotten any girl to go anywhere with me when I was a lad, I would probably have fainted from sheer shock and excitement before I got anywhere near a Waltzer. By the way, the American name for it is much sexier. But, that’s usually the case with American names for things.”

“So, you weren’t a ladies’ man?” I ask, but before he can answer, our plates arrive and the delicious smells make me start to salivate.

“Did Mr. Average Calves skimp on dinner?” Cormac asks as I heap a huge forkful of delicious pad thai, still steaming, into my mouth.

His words are perfectly civil, but his tone has the nasty bite of jealousy.
Which should make me nervous.

Instead I’m glad I detect it.

“The date went a little haywire.” I take another bite and add, “I asked some questions he didn’t like, he got a little pissy, and when I tried to leave, he got a little rough so I had to--”

“He what?”

Cormac’s voice is smooth and soft. He’s put his fork down on the table, and there isn’t the remotest trace of a smile anywhere on his face. He’s all pure fury, and I’m so shocked, I can only stutter out my answer.

“He got upset I guess and--”

“‘Rough’ is what you said, Benelli. You said, ‘when I tried to leave, he got a little rough.’ Did I mishear you?”

I swallow hard and my stomach drops a little.
Cormac would make the most amazing teacher. He’s got that whole quiet authority thing on lockdown.

“I did say that.” I rub my arm where
Akos grabbed it, and Cormac hones in on my absent-minded gesture.

“May I see?” His voice is so unlike it usually is, so cold and severe, I don’t really think before I let my
hoodie slide slowly off my shoulder and down my arm.

I follow the line of his sight to the blotchy purplish marks that dot my arm where
Akos’s hand ringed it.

His eyes blaze and he grits his teeth hard. “He did this to you?
The construction foreman? The big bad Akos Miklós did this to
you
on a
date
?”

“
Cormac, he didn’t mean to. He grabbed me, and I yanked my arm away. That’s all.”

I’m nervous now and wish I’d just kept my mouth shut. I’ve ruined dinner, and I have a terrible feeling that
Cormac might try to confront Akos, which would be a disaster. Akos could crush Cormac in a second if he wanted to and wouldn’t think twice about doing just that.

“I apologize. I do, truly, but I’ve lost my appetite. Do you mind if we box this?”
Cormac asks.

I do mind.

I just left the single worst date of my life, and I couldn’t imagine the night improving at all. Then I threw a few rocks at Cormac’s window, and everything changed. I was having an amazing time with him, and I don’t want it to end.

But I realize his question was just a courtesy, because he’s already got the waiter hurrying over, and he’s attempting to assure the man that there’s nothing wrong, but he’s definitely talking about the weather.

I’m willing to bet Cormac’s grandmother will not be getting that birthday card.

He pays for the meal before I can offer to pitch in and walks me home, his steps long and quick,
his mood edgy and punctuated by occasional kicks at the cobblestones.

When we get to my door, he hands me my to-go box and gives me a tight smile, but I put a hand on his wrist before he can leave.