Page 9 of For Pleasure Or Worse

Her tongue darted out, painting her bottom lip, and I leaned my body farther over the counter. I didn't want to whisper but I wanted our conversation to be just that. Ours. She was thinking about every last reason this could be a bad idea, and I knew so because I had all the same tells. Her eye contact had waned, her hands fidgeting and anxiously picking; even her breathing was coming quicker. Not quite panicking yet, but weighing the pros and cons of something that could lead to it. I madehernervous. I backed up again.

She tapped her fingernails against each other. "Why don't women your own age like you?"

"I travel a lot."

"Is that a money brag?"

"You couldn't pay people to go to the places I’ve been." My neck craned over the ledge of the counter, catching a glimpse of something blue and crumpled inside the small garbage at Natalia's feet. "Did you throw my phone number away?"

She kicked the tiny basket farther beneath her desk. "Yes."

"I thought this was going well."

"Customer service is my specialty…" She squinted, reading the name embroidered across the chest of my work shirt. "Mateo."

"Duran," I added. "What do you think of that name?"

"What do I think of your name?" she said with a laugh. Like it was the most ridiculous question she'd ever heard. More so than the hundred she got a day sitting behind this desk clicking buttons and counting change. She pulled her keyboard back in front of her and started jostling the mouse to wake the screen, alluding to work. For all anyone could tell I was there opening a new account. Not trying to get the bank teller in my bed.

"Yeah. I figured it might be yours one day. So I wanted to make sure you liked it."

“Wow, that was something.” She snorted. Natalia had the most perfect full lips, and I would die just to see her teeth sink into the bottom one. At the very least I amused her; she tolerated the way I was coming on, terrible pick-up lines and all. It made me keep trying.

“That was an honest question.”

She rested the end of her pen between her teeth. She was fucking calling my attention to her mouth; I wasn’t imagining things. "Duran is a good name, but…Mateo doesn't exactly roll off the tongue."

"You can call me whatever you want," I offered. "Whatever makes your tongue happy."

I remembered Pike for the first time since I stopped to talk to Natalia and glanced at the door. It was a bright and warm late October day in South Florida, not a cloud in the sky, but the tints on the windows of the bank made the entire room feel gray. It was the kind of job where clocking out at the end of the day felt like being let out of prison.

"Look." She sighed, dropping the pen. "I think you're attractive, and I appreciate the coffee and conversation, but I don't know anything about you, and…” A pause. “I am not the type of girl to do relationships. My life is…complicated."

I rubbed at the hair along my jaw. Usually, I was pretty off the cuff. I could hold a conversation with anyone, talk myself out of anything. I was trained in crisis prevention and de-escalation in the special forces of the United States military; it was literally part of my day-to-day to be the guy who knew exactly what to say. But for some reason this five-foot nothing bank secretary with the pencil skirt and the little attitude that turned me on more than it should have had me stumped.

"You want to know about me?” I asked. "Okay, I'm thirty-four. I was born in the Bronx and I have a younger brother named Angelo, so if you think my name is bad, get a load of that one. When I was eighteen I enlisted in the Army. My parents fucking hated me for it for years, maybe they still do, but we don’t talk about it. I drink on occasion, mostly to relax, but sometimes not. I've never done any hard drugs, never even smoked weed, and after spending fifteen years in the military that's basically unheard of. My favorite movie isDirty Dancing, and I can't watch horror. I actually had nightmares so bad as a kid I peed the bed until I was twelve."

Natalia was shaking her head but her straight white teeth curved into a smile.

"I started this business two years ago with that jerk outside waiting for me to make a move on you. We live together. Hisname is Frankie, but our buddies we served with and I all call him Pike. He and I are kind of a package deal, so if you've got any friends…" I trailed off suggestively. "And I love a challenge. Our job is done, so if you tell me no today, I’ll find another reason to come back in here again tomorrow. And not because I can't take no for an answer”—I leaned forward, close enough to notice her eyes had some flecks of yellow—“but because if I'm reading this right, I don’t think you want me to."

Natalia tucked the strand of her hair hanging in front of her face behind her ear and I imagined a moment where I might be able to do it for her.

“Am I reading this right, Miss Russo?”

Her neck tilted. "I'm not a cheap date."

"I've got money."

"And I'm terrible at expressing my feelings."

"I'm a great listener."

"Sometimes I just want to sit in silence, or read a book, or stare at the ceiling and not talk to anyone."

"I bet you're gorgeous to look at from across the room while you do."

A curious, fiery light flared in her eyes. She relaxed backward into her desk chair, the thin plastic creaking softly. "I'll drive you crazy."

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