He froze and looked out of the corner of his eye, not moving his face.
Now Josie wondered what was up with him, because that was just not a typical Alex move. How would you know a typical Alex move, Josie? she thought. It wasn’t as if she knew enough about him to be able to make a judgment call like that. And yet, in the day or so that she had known him, she felt she knew him well enough to begin to make some general assumptions.
“That is Lisa,” he said, a tone of regret and resignation coming out in a raspy voice, a hushed attempt at privacy. “I’ll tell you more in the elevator.”
The blonde woman charted furiously, her hand jerking across the page, as her eyes flitted between Josie and Alex and whatever medical document she was working on. A red flush crept over the pale skin on her neck, and into her jawline and cheeks.
A creepy feeling spread through Josie’s gut. Whatever this was about, it didn’t feel good. She didn’t like holding Alex’s hand and not feeling good. It was so contradictory that it triggered a sense of panic in her. Not a full-blown panic attack, more a sense that she was nearing a precipice, and might have to struggle not to fall. Whatever that woman meant in Alex’s life, it didn’t seem like it was something she should pry into. Yet the laser-like stare that was focused on Josie felt like it might cleanly cauterize the back of her head.
She decided to just head this one off right here. “Do I know you?” she asked in an even tone, turning to face her. The blonde ignored her and flipped the chart closed with a flick of the wrist, storming off.
A huge sigh of relief escaped from Alex, his chest lowering and his hand loosening around hers. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. No sexy ride right now; whatever that woman represented, it wasn’t good juju.
As they stepped aboard and Alex pressed the lobby button, Josie said, “Okay. Spill.”
He squared his shoulders and shook his head. “We went on one date. One. Coffee. She has this…thing about me.”
“Coffee?” She punched him lightly on the bicep just as the elevator stopped at the next floor.
The doors opened and people poured in; he dropped his voice to answer, “Not the same coffee you and I had, my dear.” The murmur in her ear sent a warm tingle between her shoulder blades as he straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back, pretending he hadn’t just sent her into a topsy-turvy state.
Again.
By the time they left the crowd and reached the street outside the hospital, she was a bit more settled, and they resumed their conversation.
“She doesn’t take the hint. I’ve never seen her behave like that, though.” He frowned, then reached for Josie’s hand, running his index finger down the lines on her palm. “Then again, I’ve never been seen at work with someone I’m…you know.”
“No. I don’t know.” She wasn’t going to give him an easy out. What did he think this was? If she was just an easy f**k to him, he had to say it. She wasn’t going to. “Someone you’re what? What’s ‘you know’?” People rushed by all around them, but took no notice of their conversation. Speaking into cell phones, conversing into the thin air of Bluetooth, as if part of the Borg, heads bent over phones, texting—everyone’s minds were on their little pieces of plastic and glass, not their surroundings. No reason not to press this conversational point right now.
He reached for her h*ps and pulled them to him, tight arms stronger than she remembered. As she looked up, his face blocked out the sun, the ends of his brown hair curling slightly from the slight humidity, his face relaxed and sly. “Do I have to define ‘you know’?”
“Yes.” The word hung between them like a dare.
A double dog dare.
Which he took. “Someone I’m dating.” The back of his hand against her cheekbone, light and feathery, made the lump in her throat dissolve. Shielding her eyes with one hand, she looked up, feeling taller and bigger than ever.
“We’re dating?”
“We are.”
“Can we have more…you know.”
“Now it’s your turn to define ‘you know,’ Josie.” His voice held a laugh. Damn it. He knew exactly what she was asking, her heart beating as fast as he’d been thrusting into her an hour ago.
On tiptoes, she licked his neck and said quietly, “Danger sex.”
“Is that what you call it?” One eyebrow cocked, his nostrils flared, jaw tightened, eyes narrowed. It wasn’t an angry expression. This was the look of a man intrigued to find there was vocabulary for something he’d thought nameless.
“What do you call it?” Turning the tables back on him was a relief. Unbearably revealing, the conversation made her hot and ready as much as it made her want to crawl into a hole. Hmmm. Maybe they could have danger sex in a hole in the street. How heavy were manhole covers?
“I don’t have a word for it.”
“Liar.” Crossing her arms, she went down to flat feet. “’Fess up.”
“Air f**king.” Alex barked the phrase out as if it would somehow be better if he said it quickly.
“Air f**king? Is that like air guitar?” She pretended to strum an electric one, like Garth and Wayne from Wayne’s World, until he grabbed her wrists, a pained expression on his face.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
Closing his eyes, he sighed, hands still gripping her. “Don’t make fun of something I never imagined a woman would actually want.” A puff of air flew out of his mouth as if the secret, now out, needed to escape from him even faster.
She softened, feeling horrible now, “Oh, no. No, Alex, I wasn’t making fun of you.” She winced, looking down. “I’m mildly embarrassed, and because I have the social skills of a tree sloth on acid, I just make jokes. Bad ones.”
A fierceness came over him and his eyes looked into her soul as if they were reading it. “You understand, though, don’t you? You liked it. You wanted it. It fed something in you. That’s how it is for me. Except I never imagined I’d find someone else who…”
“Yes.” The intensity was almost too much to bear, and Josie felt something crack inside her, a tiny tendril of a new green shoot seeking sunlight.
“Good.”
“Come over to my place for dinner,” she ventured.
“Dinner?”
“Dinner and a movie.”
“What’s the movie?”