Sweet Little Lies (4 page)

I
switched my weight from foot to foot as I waited for Christina to come down to the hotel lobby.When I called up to her room, she said she’d be right down. I kept my eyes on the elevator doors but hadn’t seen her. But there was this one woman …an absolute knockout.And then I froze.

I did not recognize Christina when she first got off the elevator. I had seen Christina in business suits and sweats (and that last bathrobe incident). Never had I seen her look like this. She had on a short, light green sleeveless dress that fit everywhere it was supposed to. Showed off incredibly smooth brown skin and long legs. She had on high-heeled shoes with her toes peeking out. Her long black hair was curly; her lips were glossy and tinted a purple-pink color. Something pretty twinkled on her ears and throat. My mouth went dry and then so wet I had to swallow. I had thought she was a cute girl. She was a beautiful woman.A really beautiful woman.

She walked toward me with a brow raised. “What is the matter with you? Why are you looking at me like that?”

I tried to regain some composure.“Like what?”

“Like you’ve never seen me before.”

I ran my eyes up and down her once more.“I’ve never seen you look like this.You look amazing.”

She grinned.“I clean up well, and thank you.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

She took a moment and looked me over. I knew I was on point.Tailored tan slacks, crisp white shirt, white linen jacket. She nodded.“You know you look good, youngster.”

I smiled. “I’m a youngster now, hmm? Okay, I see you. Is this still not a date?”

“Definitely not a date.” She was firm.

“Even though you have on the pumps and gloss?” I couldn’t resist teasing her.

“I’m being polite. When you called, you said to dress for someplace nice. I didn’t want to shame you.”

“I so very much appreciate your efforts on my behalf. Shall we go?” I gestured toward the revolving doors.

“Have a great evening, folks!” the doorman called out as we stepped out into the hot and humid night. I was really going to miss my mild Bay Area weather.

“Thanks!” I answered, and turned left. “Do you mind walking? It’s not very far.”

“Sure, why not?” she said easily.

As we stepped forward, I moved her to the inside so I was closer to the street and reached for her hand to clasp it in mine. She stopped dead in her tracks. I looked over.“What?”

“That was a very datelike thing you just did. Taking the street side and holding my hand.”

I glanced at our linked fingers.“Christina, how many times do I have to tell you? I am a gentleman.And I’m not trying to date you.” I really wouldn’t mind sleeping with her; but as prickly as she was—no way would I make that move. I couldn’t blame her. But she was mighty skittish. I definitely didn’t notice her releasing my hand either.

She squeezed my hand for a quick second. “Still not a date.”

I squeezed back and we continued walking. “Got it. No date here.And a good thing, too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, if this was a date you’d be in trouble tonight, Ms. Brinsley.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Most definitely. I’d be trying out some of my best moves on you.”

She snorted.“What makes you think I’m interested in seeing your moves, Mr.Williams?”

“You don’t wear a dress like that and shoes like those without expecting a brother to pant a little, try a little sumthin’. C’mon now.”

“Are you panting a little?”

“Just a little.You know I’m smooth with mine.”

“Those smooth moves, do they work for you?”

“More often than you’d think.”

She sent me a side-eye.“I’ll just bet. Good thing, then.”

“Like I said. I’m a gentleman. Man of my word and all.”

“You’re a rare breed.”

“I thought you knew.”

Christina laughed.“Ha! You talk a good game, I’ll give you that.”

“Again, I thought you knew.”

“I actually don’t know you at all.”

I slid her a glance. “I thought you wanted to keep it that way.”

“Excellent point.”

For someone who proclaimed not to be on a date, she sure looked the part and did the flirty banter well. We walked in companionable silence the rest of the way to the restaurant. Cutting past the people waiting outside, I went straight to the maître d’ station.“Williams, party of two.”

“Right this way, sir. Madam. Is this your first time at Pesca?”

Christina said yes as I said no. He led us to a booth on the side wall and seated us. Handing us the menus, he snatched the Reserved sign and snapped his fingers. A large bottle of San Pellegrino water was placed on the table. “Your server, Jason, will be out momentarily to get your drink orders and answer any questions about the menu. Chef David has asked to be informed when you arrived, so I’ll go tell him now. Enjoy.”

I smiled and nodded as I opened the menu.A brother was starving. I never had my omelet and waffle fries this morning. I had settled into the apartment I was going to share with three other people and promptly fallen asleep. By the time I woke up, grabbed a slice of pizza, ran over to campus to register, and introduced myself to a few professors, it was time to run home and get ready for this non-date. The surf and turf was looking good. In the midst of contemplating rib eye vs. porterhouse, I felt Christina’s eyes on me. I closed the menu and leaned back in the booth.“Okay, now you are looking at me some kind of way….What’s up?”

She opened her pretty mouth and then shut it again, shaking her head. I watched as her hair bounced and settled against her shoulders.

“No, now. Might as well spill it,” I said.

“You’re going to accuse me of being ‘that chick’ again,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I want to know how a delivery-guy-turned-grad-student gets a reserved table at a Manhattan restaurant with less than twelve hours’ notice
and
warrants a visit from Chef David.”

I took my time, poured us both some expensive bubbly water before I answered.“Chef David is a friend of mine from Chicago. He opened this place about six months ago. I called
him today to tell him I was in town and he insisted I come through.”

“You are friends with a celebrity chef,” she stated slowly, as if getting used to the idea.

She cracked me up. Hard as she tried to put me in a box, I kept climbing back out. I could tell she was dying to ask questions but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Heaven forbid she should sound datelike. I just nodded with a little smile.

“Oo-kay.”

I couldn’t help it, I had to laugh.“It’s killing you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“You’re dying to ask about my background, but you don’t want to act like you care because after dinner I’m supposed to be dismissed from your world, never to be heard from again. Am I right?”

She leaned back, squinted a little before sighing. “You got me. I really don’t want to start anything, so can I just be a little curious about you without it meaning anything more than that?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said I don’t have time for any sort of entanglements now myself? I start graduate school in less than two weeks and plan to completely immerse myself in that. Besides, you seem like a woman who needs a lot of time and attention. I don’t have either of those to give.You can stop worrying about me stalking you after our non-date is done, no matter how good you look tonight.” She had this great expression when she was deciding whether to be irritated or amused. She had worn it often since I sat down next to her on the airplane last night.Was that just last night?

She smirked.“That was both complimentary and insulting at the same time.Are you calling me high maintenance?”

“Girly, I saw those wedding presents. I know you’re high maintenance,” I reminded her.

She nodded her head. “Point taken.” She sighed. “Those were some nice gifts.”

“No doubt. But easy come, easy go—right?”

She made a moving forward motion with her hand. “On to the next.”

We sat smiling at each other with the candlelight dancing between us when Chef David walked up.“Hey, S. Dub, what’s good?” I got up and clapped him on the back.

“Dave Roget, Christina Brinsley. Christina, this is Chef David.”

Dave was a 5′9″ light-skinned brother with a great smile and just enough glossy sophistication to cover his South Side Chicago roots. He took one look at Christina, leaned in to take her hand, and flashed the smile. “Christina, a pleasure. A true pleasure.Welcome to my little bistro.” He squeezed one of her hands between his and looked at me.“Nice, son.”

“Thank you for having us on such short notice,” Christina replied while trying to pull her hand away.

“Not a problem at all.Thanks for gracing my humble establishment with your presence.”

“Down, son. Unhand the girl,” I teased and sat back down.

“Oh, sorry. So do we want to talk about how you two know each other and whether Christina wants to be my first ex-wife, or get straight to the menu tonight?”

Christina laughed.“No, thank you.And menu, please.”

Dave put his hand on my shoulder.“S. Dub, you trust me?”

I nodded.“With everything but her, sure.”

“I’ll send you guys some stuff I’m working on, then.This one’s on me.You two just sit back and enjoy your date.”

“It’s not a date!” we both said at the same time. Adamant and in unison.

Dave looked from me to Christina and back again. “I … see.”

Christina folded her arms and looked at me. I looked back, saying nothing.

“All right then.We’ll be sending out some wine pairings with each course, unless you want something stronger?”

I tilted my head to Christina, indicating that the decision was up to her.

“Wine sounds lovely.Thank you, Dave.”

“Great, great. I’ll be back out to check on you.” He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Can’t wait to hear the story on this one.
Cannot
wait.” He walked back toward the kitchen, laughing.

“What did he say?” Christina asked.

“He just welcomed me to New York.”

“I’ll bet he did. S. Dub?” She said it with a scrunch of her nose.

“Steven W. equals S. Dub. What, you have no childhood nickname that followed you into adulthood?”

Our server, Jason, brought wine and a basket of artisan breads. Christina picked up a small roll, broke it in half, and reached for the butter. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“You’re never going to see me again after tonight, so what does it matter?”

She held the roll up and gave me a considering glance. “True. Okay. My family calls me Ti-Ti.”

I burst out laughing; she was not a Ti-Ti at all.“I can’t see it. You are very Christina Brinsley. Not Ti-Ti B. Where did they get it from?”

She shrugged.“ChrisTIna Violet T. Brinsley…Ti-Ti.”

“Never Christy or Tina or Chrissy?”

“No, sir.”

“And what does the
T
stand for?”

“Oh, that’s not something I’d share with someone I wasn’t dating,” she said firmly and bit into the roll. She groaned and her eyelids drifted shut. “Oh my God. That’s amazing.” Her face was a study of bliss as she licked some melted butter off her upper lip.

Wow. That was sexy. Unexpectedly so. Watching her tongue trail after the butter sent a jolt straight to places that
had no business anticipating attention. She wasn’t even trying and I was lusting in a bad way, just that quickly. I reached for the wine and took a generous swallow.
Nope, still wanted her. Dammit.
She opened her eyes and caught the expression on my face before I could school my features. She went very still.

“What?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Right now, you look like a Ti-Ti. Testing temptation. Teasing and tantalizing.”

A pulse was beating visibly at the base of her neck. It wasn’t just me. She felt it, too. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “You have a creative side.”

“I have many sides.”

“You’re flirting with me.”

“I’ll stop.”
Stop it, Steve,
I scolded myself.
Stop looking, stop lusting. Just eat, talk, and go.
But it was too late. That man / woman thing was out of the bag between us, and I wasn’t sure either of us wanted to put it back.When Jason brought a dish of chopped shrimp and scallops in a fragrant sauce, we both picked up our forks gratefully.We were hungry and in need of a diversion.

A
fter I licked the butter off my lip, the evening took a turn. It went from light and flirty to tense and tingly. Dammit. I didn’t need tingles. I needed light jokes and easy conversation and absolutely nothing complicated.When I looked up into Steven’s eyes, it felt complicated. So I concentrated on the food and the wine and made light conversation.

I found out his close friends call him Steve. His father was a mail carrier, his mother was a teacher. His twin sister was also a teacher and there was a wide net of extended family: cousins and aunts and uncles. He had grown up modestly and tried his hand at thug life for a short stint in his early teens. He decided he didn’t like it and concentrated his energy on schoolwork after a close brush with the law. He went to UCLA on a full educational scholarship and afterward moved to San Francisco. He started in the operations department of the delivery service and tried to get exposure to each department in the two years he worked there.

When David came back out with wafer-thin slices of beef, he shared that he had lived with Steven’s family for a while
when his own home life wasn’t very stable. He told a story of Steven not letting him watch TV in the evening until he’d finished his homework and Steven being the only person who truly encouraged him to follow his passion in culinary arts. He called Steven the brother he never had.

Well, damn. The problem was, I had hoped to use the twenty-questions-style chatter to distract me from being attracted to Steven. Instead, the more I found out—the more I liked. I lost track of how many courses and wines were brought out. It was all delicious. But my head was spinning and my stomach was full. “Steven, I’ve had enough,” I announced when Jason came back with what he described as a palate-cleansing sparkling dessert wine. I was peeking at the label when Steven spoke.

“You’ve tasted your fill, huh?” Something in his inflection made me look up. I raised a brow at him.

“Are you flirting again?” I took one sip. It was liquid ambrosia, but I set it aside.

“Do you want me to?” He took one sip and set it aside as well.

I paused. He smiled. I answered him.“No. I’m stuffed. Let’s call it a night.”

He nodded.“As you wish.”

David came back out of the kitchen and we said our goodbyes. Stepping out into the night, I realized that I’d had quite a bit to drink in the last twenty-four hours and not so very much sleep. I was a little off balance but all of sudden inexplicably energetic. I took a quick step forward and teetered slightly. His hand was there to steady me.

“You okay?”

“A little light-headed but I feel great.You want to walk for a little while?”

He gave me a strange look. “I thought you were ready to get rid of me.”

I took a step back. “Are you in a hurry? Do you need to get home?”

“I’m a grown-ass man, Ti-Ti. I’ve got all night.”

Uh-oh. I shook my head at him. “Let’s just walk, S. Dub. Let’s just walk.”

So we walked. Block after block, making easy conversation along the way.We had walked for quite a ways when I heard salsa music playing. As we neared the club, I paused and did a quick step. He reached for my arm and spun me around to complete the step and fell in beside me. I smiled up at him. “You know salsa?”

He cut another step and grinned.“You tell me.You game?”

I laughed.“Oh hell, why not?”

As we walked in, he said in my ear,“Still not a date though, right?”

“Definitely not.”

“Just checking.” When I reached in my purse to pay the cover charge, he frowned and shook his head. Handing money over to the hostess, he said, “Okay, let’s see what you got, Ti-Ti.”

The song was changing as we stepped to the small dance floor, the music started, and I smiled in recognition.“Oh, it’s a Willie Colón song.”

“Tito Puente did it better though.” He slid his arm around my waist and we started moving together. “And close your mouth, Ti-Ti.A brother knows music, too.”

My last thought before he spun it out of my head was that it was a shame I wouldn’t know him for much longer. He was the most interesting guy I’d met in years.

I had no more time for stray thoughts. I had to concentrate on keeping up.This boy could move, and he had a flair for the dramatic. He spun me and dipped me and danced me backwards and in a swirl.When the music turned slow and dreamy, he pulled me close and we swayed.When it switched to a reg-gaeton beat, he stepped back and we kept moving.

They say you can tell a lot about somebody by the way they dance. If that is at all true, Steven was the smoothest brother I had ever come across. He had moves I couldn’t keep up with, and I could cut me a step. He had the nerve to look good doing it, too. Effortless. I watched him and he watched me right back. It had been ages since I danced like this. We kept it going until the band took a break. He took my hand and led me off the dance floor.We paused by the bar for a second and he ordered something.

“Whew!” I dug a lone Kleenex out of my tiny handbag and dabbed at my face.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded and gratefully accepted the bottle of water he handed me. I opened it and took a deep swig as we started walking. My head was spinning, I was hot and my feet were killing me, but I felt better than I had in ten days. Suddenly I stopped.

“What? Did we forget something?”

“No. I just realized—I haven’t thought about Jay/David once tonight. Not once.”

He grinned.“That’s a good thing.”

I shook my head.“That’s a great thing!”

“Well, all right then. So you had fun tonight?”

“I had fun.”

“Then I’ve succeeded. Glad to be of service.”

We started walking again and I tugged at his hand. He stopped and looked down at me.“Yes, Ms. Brinsley? What can I do for you?”

I took a step closer and looked up at him. “Steven, thank you. What a great night.” I stretched up on my tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

“That’s a thank-you?” he teased.

I moved a half inch over and kissed a little closer to his mouth.“Thank you,” I said in a softer voice, rubbing my cheek against his.

“You’re almost welcome.”

Laughing, I placed my lips against his and pressed once and then kissed softly. “Thank you,” I whispered, letting my eyes flutter shut.

He kissed back, nibbling my lips and licking in between. “You’re welcome.”

I raised my lashes a little bit to gauge his expression. “Oh, to hell with it.” I put one arm around his neck, arched into him and dove into his mouth for a real kiss.

It was all the invitation he needed, wrapping me up in both arms and matching my tongue strokes with bolder moves of his own. One of his hands came up to clasp the back of my head and angle me gently where he wanted me to be. Damn, if he wasn’t really good at this. No, I mean really talented. An actual shiver raced down my spine. I wanted more. I whimpered a little and tried to get closer when a taxi honked from the street.

“Hey you two—get a room!”

I leaned back in his arms and I suddenly had no qualms and no indecision.“I have a room,” I said and met his eyes directly.

His gaze was level and his voice was gravelly when he an-swered,“Yes, you do.”

“Would you like to… visit?”

“By visit do you mean coming back to your room, stripping you naked, and learning every single thing that makes you shiver and groan like you just did?”

I swallowed. He was observant.“Yes, that is exactly what I mean. So would you care to?”

“You know, I believe I would.”

“Let’s go.”

“Taxi!”