“Plenty of offense.” He’s glaring.
“You follow women’s soccer, too?” I ask.
He nods. “Proud OL Reign supporter since 2012.”
“Me, too!” I beam. “So you don’t always have terrible taste.”
“What’s your men’s team?” A cute, charming vertical line has appeared between his brows.
I rest my chin on my hands. “Guess. I’ll give you three tries.”
“Honestly, I can accept any club except for Real Madrid.”
I continue with my chin hands, unperturbed.
“It’s Real Madrid, isn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“Outrageous.”
“You’re just jelly because we can afford to buy decent players.”
“Right.” He sighs and hands me one of the menus I never even noticed the waiter dropped off. “I’m going to need food for this conversation. And so will you.”
We spend the rest of the night arguing, and it’s . . . fantastic. The best. I suspect the food is as good as he promised, but I don’t pay very much attention, because Erik has incredibly incorrect opinions on the way Orlando Pride is using Alex Morgan and on the Premier League trajectory of Liverpool, and I must dedicate all my efforts to talking him out of them.
I fail. He stands by his wrong ideas and systematically makes his way through the bread, then an appetizer, then an entrée, like a man who is used to comfortably consuming seven large meals a day. At the end, when our plates are clean and I’m too full to bicker with him over the offside-sanctions rules, we both lean back in our chairs and are silent for a moment.
I’m smiling. He’s . . . not smiling, but close, and it makes me smile even more.
I think this might have been the most fun I’ve had in years. Okay, false: I know it is.
“How did it go, by the way?” he asks quietly.
“What?”
“Your pitch.”
“Oh. Good, I think.”
“Thanks to Faye’s croissant?”
I grin. “Undoubtedly. And my lavender underwear.”
He lowers his eyes and clears his throat. “Who’s the client?”
“A cooperative. They’re building a rec center based in New Jersey and are shopping around for consultants. It’s a second location for them, so they bought an old grocery store to turn into a gym of sorts. They’re looking for someone who’ll help them design it.”
“You?”
“And my boss, yes. Though two of her kids have been colicky, so for now mostly me.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I talked them through my plans for energy independence, green building standards, smart water management, minimizing off-gas chemicals . . . that stuff. They were going for a green edge, they said.”
“And what are your plans?”
I hesitate. I really don’t want to bore Erik, and I’ve gotten feedback from . . . literally everyone that when I start talking about engineering stuff, I go on for way too long. But Erik seems more than a little interested, and even though I blabber about raw materials and federal limits and life-cycle assessment for over ten minutes, his attention never seems to waver. He just nods pensively, like he’s filing away the information, and asks lots of clever questions.
“So you got the project?”
I shrug. “They’re meeting with someone else tomorrow, so I don’t know yet. But they said we’re their first choice so far, so I’m optimistic.”
Erik doesn’t reply. Instead he just studies me, serious, intent, like I’m a particularly intriguing blueprint. Does it make me uncomfortable? I don’t know. It should. I’m out with a guy. For the first time in a million years. And he’s staring. Yikes, right? But . . . I kind of don’t mind.
Mostly, I’m wondering whether he likes what he sees, which is a bit different. I feel, sometimes, like I’ve lost the habit to wonder whether I’m pretty in favor of agonizing over other qualities. Do I look professional? Smart? Organized? Someone who should be taken seriously, whatever the hell that means? I generally find the idea of men commenting on my attractiveness, favorably or otherwise, repulsive. But tonight, right now . . . the possibility that Erik might find me beautiful uncurls warmly at the base of my stomach.
And then freezes when I consider that he might be staring for the opposite reason. Could he be staring for the opposite reason? Okay. This is—no. I need to stop with the ruminating. “What are you thinking?” I ask.
He huffs a laugh. “Just wondering something.”
“What?”
He drums his fingers on the table. “Whether you want a job.”
“Oh, I still have one. Despite my efforts this morning, I didn’t actually get fired.”
“I know. And this is very inappropriate, I am aware. But I’d love to poach you.”
“Ah. I . . .” Suddenly, I’m feeling hot and weirdly tingly. “I like my job. It pays okay. And my boss is great.”
“I’ll pay you more. Name a figure.”
“I . . . what?”
“And if there’s anything you don’t enjoy about your current job, I’d be happy to come to an agreement about your duties. I’m very open to negotiating.”
“Wait—you?”
“ProBld,” he amends.
I frown. He talks about ProBld like he has a lot of say in their administrative choices, and I wonder if he has a managerial position. It would explain the suit. And the fact that he clearly came to dinner directly from work, even though we met at eight. He’s wearing the same clothes as this morning, albeit without his tie and jacket, and with the sleeves of his button-down rolled up to his forearms. Which look strong and oddly male, and I’ve been trying hard not to ogle. I’m about to ask what exactly his job description is, but I get distracted when the waiter brings the check and hands it to Erik. Who readily accepts it.
Is he paying? I guess he’s paying. Should I politely insist that we split it? Should I rudely insist that we split it? Should I offer to pay for both of us? He did buy the croissant this morning. How does one dine out with company? I have no clue.
“Thank you,” the waiter says before leaving. “Always nice to see you, Erik.”
“You do come here a lot,” I tell him.
He shrugs, slipping his credit card inside the book. Okay. The paying ship has sailed. Crap. “With big clients, mostly.”
“So it’s not your default date place?” The question comes out before I can turn the words in my head. Which means that I don’t realize its implications until well after it’s lingering between us. Erik is staring, again, and I’m suddenly flustered. “I don’t know if . . . if you don’t . . . I didn’t mean to say that this is a date.”
His eyebrow lifts.
“I mean—maybe you just wanted to . . . as friends, and . . .”
The eyebrow lifts higher.
I clear my throat. “I . . . Is this a date?” I ask, my voice small, suddenly insecure.
“I don’t know,” he says carefully, after mulling it over for a second.
“Maybe it isn’t. I . . .” I didn’t want to make it weird. Maybe you just think I’m a nice girl and wanted someone to have dinner with and I totally misread the situation and I’m so, so sorry. It’s just, I think I like you a lot? More than I can remember liking anyone? It’s possible that I projected and— The waiter comes to pick up the check, which interrupts my spiraling and gives me a chance to take a deep breath. It’s all good. So maybe it wasn’t a date. It’s fine. It was fun, anyway. Good food. Good soccer talk. I made a friend.