I may have just crossed a line, but I can tell when she smiles at me and squeezes my hand that she doesn’t mind.
* * *
AT THE BAR, I drink, I eat, I people-watch.
It’s a fascinating study, and in such stark contrast to my everyday. I have the most casual of clientele; have always run in circles that were more comfortable with grub than polish. Literally no one I know other than Harlow and Ansel—and now Lola—would blend in here. But this is Lola’s new reality and so, in some ways, it’s also mine.
She finds me after about a half hour and slides onto the seat beside me. “Hey you.”
“Hey.” I put my drink down and take her hand, squeezing. I’m relieved to have her back. Despite my confidence that Lola would never go off with someone like Austin, I didn’t particularly relish being separated from her. “How did it go?”
She smiles and nods at someone across the room. “It was good,” she says through her grin, holding it. “I think. They have a lot of ideas. I sort of tried to listen.” She looks back at me, adding, “Without judgment.”
“That bad, huh?”
Shaking her head, she says, “Not all of it. It’s just weird when something so personal isn’t just mine anymore. Langdon already has a lot written, I guess. I’m trying not to knee-jerk all over the place.”
“Want to talk about it later?” I guess.
She nods, and when the bartender checks in with her, she leans in to order a drink over the din of the crowd. He mixes it in front of her while she watches in silence, looking like she very clearly needs it. She takes the glass from him with a smile that’s returned a little too enthusiastically for my liking, and turns back to me.
“So what do you want to talk about?” I ask.
“We’re at a pretty fancy party, and you just sat at the bar alone for a half hour while about fifteen executives checked you out and mentally took you home to their creepy L.A. sex dungeons.”
I laugh. “Lies.”
“Not lies,” she says, leaning in and making a funny face. “What’s your best pickup line?”
“I don’t really have a line. I just sort of sit there, like this.” I shift my knees apart and give her the blue steel.
“Wide stance,” she says, with a grin. “I like what that communicates to the room.”
I make a show of straightening my glasses and motion to myself. “I mean, you put out the honey, you’re going to get some bees.”
Lola smacks my shoulder, laughing.
Nodding at her with a sexy little wink, I say, “Baby, I know we’re gonna fuck, it’s just a matter of how we get back to your place.” I lean in, for dramatic effect, whispering, “I don’t have a car.”
When Lola laughs, her head tilts back, exposing her perfect skin, long, slim throat, and the sound is higher than one would guess from hearing her sultry voice, more girlish. Her laugh, when she’s at ease, is adorable in a way Lola would never admit.
“That’s my new favorite,” she says when her laughter dies down.
I love when she says favorite. The way her mouth forms the f. She kisses the air. It makes me think about moving over her, capturing those lips in a kiss when she gasps out a pleading “Fuck.”
Her eyes meet mine and they’re smiling, unaware of how far my thoughts have taken me. “How could anyone ever say no to that?”
“Honestly,” I tease, “I haven’t a clue.”
“What’s this like for you?” she asks me and then looks around the room.
I shrug, following the path her eyes have taken. “Weird, I guess. But not. It’s not altogether different from what I expected. Sort of a departure from the shop, I reckon.”
She smiles at me. “You’re the biggest geek I’ve ever known.” When she says it, I hear pride in her voice. To Lola, this is the ultimate praise.
The bartender sets another whiskey in front of me and I thank him with a nod. “This is true,” I tell her with a bit more mocking in my voice. “And yet, here you are, enjoying this evening with me anyway.”
“It must be the alcohol,” she says, sipping from her little straw.
I nod to her drink. “That’s your first one.”
She smiles. “You’re observant, I like that.”
“One of my many attributes. Along with hardworking, good at maths, and punctual.”
She shakes her head, swallowing a sip quickly so she can contradict me: “Hey, at the top of that list should be the accent.”
“You’re saying my accent is more important than my ability to do multiplication tables in my head?”