Aaron hated potpourri. Neither was he especially fond of hacked-off flowers that were crammed into vases, and in his soul he knew that a woman’s hair was best left soft and unshellacked. Feeling rather justified in his criticism, he leaned back in the pint-size chair and his fingers drummed even faster.
Where was Didi? She was always late, he reminded himself, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Excuse me. I don’t mean to interrupt, but can you move your chair please?”
At the sound of a woman’s voice, his fingers ceased their drumming, and he turned to contemplate this newest irritation. Automatically his mouth curved into the politely expected smile, but it wasn’t as difficult as usual.
She had soft brown eyes, possessing that wondrous sort of delight most commonly seen in magazine ads for cleaning products. Her face was long and thin, with a sharp nose well suited to intruding where it didn’t belong. But she had nice hair, he admitted, only to be fair. Autumn gold waves that fell past her shoulders, soft and unshellacked—as it should be.
“Your chair?” she repeated in that same no-nonsense tone, and he reminded himself that people must be more dense in frilly, feminine worlds. Trying to oblige, he shifted an inch forward, until his knees lodged painfully against the adjacent chair. All social obligations now complete, he nodded to dismiss her.
“Do you need that much room?” asked the woman who would not be dismissed. “I’m trying to work,” she offered as way of explanation, as if everyone chose a dining room as their personal office. Of course, with the hodgepodge of electronic gadgets spread on the table in front of her, he wasn’t surprised she needed extra space.
“The chair’s aren’t that big,” he argued, because if he moved any closer to the table, he’d be on top of it.
She looked him up and down, and smiled, patently fake. “You don’t look fat.”
Fat? Then he noticed the teasing look in her eyes. “Don’t get nasty,” he answered testily, because Aaron had never handled teasing well.
“I’m trying to work here, but I can’t move my elbows. I need to move my elbows,” she explained, flexing her arms over the small tabletop, her expression politely determined in that way of people who didn’t know when to give up.
“Don’t we all?” he muttered, before unhappily adjusting his knees. Trying to block out the rest of the world, his fingers began nervously drumming once again.
She looked up, scowled at his hand.
“I’m making you unhappy, aren’t I?” he asked, strangely happy about it.
As soon as he spoke, a heavily embalmed dowager at the next table shushed him. Obviously people in her world enjoyed the oozing scent of bad potpourri and didn’t mind having their legs compressed in unnatural positions.
Cranky old biddy, he thought. Probably owned cats.
“Sorry,” the younger woman apologized in a stage whisper, with a nod toward the next table. He nearly smiled when the older woman sniffed.
“It’s not your fault,” he told the younger woman magnanimously.
“I won’t bother you again,” she promised, but after that, he could still feel her staring at his back, and he told himself that the woman was very attractive, and he shouldn’t mind having her stare at him. But this time, he could feel the tightness of his collar, the instinctive desire to cover his face. He told himself it was the surroundings, the filigreed trappings and overindulgence of gilt. When faced with too much noise, too much gold and too many eyes, he had an overwhelming urge to flee.
Finally he turned around, shuffling his chair sideways to face her. “I don’t like being in crowds,” he explained. “Especially fussy crowds with pearls and rose patterns and cucumber sandwiches.” It was as close to an apology as he’d ever admitted.
“You don’t get out much, do you?” she asked.
“Enough,” he lied. He got out more than he wanted, and every time he did, he regretted the experience. When he got right to the point, as he knew he should, Aaron preferred isolation. He preferred the voices in his head, the world he created, the perfect turn of the phrase.
He preferred alone.
“Why are you here?” she asked, seeing through the lie.
“Lunch.”
“Dragged the dragon out of his lair? Must be some friend.”
He snickered at the thought. Didi? “She’s not a friend.”
“Oh,” she replied, a wealth of innuendo in the word, and he choked back his laughter. She thought Didi was a date. “I’m sorry. I’ll get back to work.”
“Don’t let me keep you from it,” he said when she turned away, not bothering to correct her assumption.
Eventually she shifted again, knocking into his shoulders. “I can be a very bad procrastinator. Sometimes I’ll know I should be working, but if I know I have the time, it’s like pulling teeth.”
“You should be more disciplined.” Deciding that maybe she did need more room to work, he shifted to the other chair at the table. It was a little better. They weren’t touching so much.
“Disciplined like you?” she asked with a mindful glance at his undisciplined fingers, and Aaron felt an odd heat on his face. A blush. Easily explained by the heat of the room, the presence of chemical additives and the disconcerting lack of oxygen.
“I never pretended to be a great example,” he muttered, and before she turned away, she smiled.
There was a bleak trickle of sweat down his neck because he enjoyed her smile. It made him warm and lethargic, and Aaron didn’t want to feel warm and lethargic, so he rubbed at his neck and concentrated on the Great Lily Massacre in the bud vase in the center of his table.
Not that it was enough. Out of the corner of his eye, he could observe her as the roller-ball pen scratched the well-thumbed pages of her Moleskin notebook. Careless and haphazard but energetic and slightly obsessed. He approved.
When she wrote, she talked to herself, reading aloud, and it wasn’t half-bad. A few dangling participles. Some verbs that could have been punchier, but overall, it was decent. He got caught up watching the movement of her mouth, and decided that her mouth wasn’t half-bad, either. It was fluid and expressive, never still, never concealing.
Oddly fascinated with her, Aaron forgot about the pungent smells and the cramped ache in his knees. It wasn’t that she was pretty, but the light in her face drew him in. A hum of energy radiated about her, not relaxing, not comfortable, but always magnetic. When she was paused in her work, she would ruffle her hair, mussing it up even more. Each time she raised her hand, the dowager glared. Not liking the glares, Aaron gifted the dowager his best crocodile smile. Instantly the stares stopped.
The drama of the world played around the younger woman, but she was immune to it all. He didn’t understand this ability to tune out the noises, and he wondered.
All too soon, the waiter came, presenting her with the check. As she pulled some cash from her overstuffed bag, she didn’t look Aaron’s way, and he told himself he was relieved. After all, he didn’t like to be disturbed. But then she rose, and he found himself supremely disturbed. He didn’t want to notice her, didn’t want to leer at her body like some undersexed boy, but it was impossible. Truly. She had breasts that would make any man want her. High lush curves that would just fit his palms.
Beneath the table, his cock throbbed painfully, and he told himself that it had been too long since he’d had sex. At one shining moment in time, his sexual appetite had been legendary. It was humiliating to realize he’d been reduced to an ordinary man with ordinary