Page 17 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

She nods, but doesn’t say anything more. I go to scratch the back of my neck but quickly stop my hand in case that’s some sort of tell. If I’m so transparent, does she know what I’m doing here, that I’m trying to move on from another woman? Can she see the unexplained guilt still lodged in my gut? Can she tell that my heart isn’t ready to be opened? If she can see all of that, she’s hiding it well. I might be transparent, but she’s a stone wall. Reading her is like trying to understand why the hell there are letters in math.

The silence stretches between us, and she leans back and gazes at the open night sky. Her finger pushes the straw in her water glass around and around, up and down, and I wonder if she’s truly comfortable with the lack of conversation or if she’s in deep thought and speaking would only ruin the moment.

Then, I swear to God, the bush behind her coughs.

“You hear that?” I ask. She doesn’t drop her gaze from the sky.

“Hmm?”

“I think that bush just coughed.”

She lets out a small laugh. “That’d be quite the party trick.”

Her shoulders lift and fall in a contented sigh, and she closes her eyes as the frosty wind rushes over our table. I grab at everything to keep it from blowing over. I really hate eating outside.

Rian doesn’t seem cold or uncomfortable. She could bebored. I thought we were killing it for a minute there. I mean, I wasn’t feeling fireworks exactly, but at least there were smiles, a back-and-forth,conversation.

This is what I like about Theresa. Because when there isn’t conversation, she’d still be talking, even if it was to herself. I don’t like silence. And this silence is going to murder me slowly, painfully, leaving me dead with an awkward look on my face.

“Why’d you bid on me?” I blurt out, punctuating the aching silence. Her eyes blink down to mine and she stops playing with her straw.

“You’re cute.”

“Lie,” I say with a small laugh, running a thumb over the label on my beer bottle. I may be cute—unfortunately I’ve been told “cute” over “sexy” more times than not—but no one would spend four grand on cute.

“Truth.” She pauses, but at least keeps her eyes on me. “But maybe not theentiretruth.”

“What’s the entire truth?”

“Have you ever stripped before?” she asks.

I chuckle. “Aren’t you supposed to answer my question first?”

“Because I could tell that you deal with stage fright.”

My eyebrows rise. “Is it that obvious?”

She shakes her head. “Only to people paying attention. You were all over the place, which was great, but once the bid got really high, you focused on one woman.” She looks down at the table. “A woman, I might add, who wasn’t putting a single dime on you.”

Theresa’s wide eyes, obvious flush, and amused shock flash through my mind. The enraptured look she gave me would’ve snagged the attention of any bachelor up there.

“Could you blame me?” I tell Rian honestly, shaking my head at the table.

“Not at all.” The corner of her mouth tilts upward. “Of course you danced for her. Youenjoyedthe attention.”

“And that’s an attractive quality?”

“Yes,” she says without missing a beat. “I think you enjoyed the attention so much because you don’t get a lot of it. And that’s a damn shame.”

I actually look down at my body to see if I am literally transparent—if I have all my issues laid out for everyone to see.

“You are one hell of a good guesser.”

She grins as the waiter plops our food in front of us. She’s ordered a gooey-looking something for me to try. When the waiter leaves we swap plates, even though my mouth’s watering just from the smell of the steak.

“What is this?” I ask, poking at it with my fork.

“Seafood risotto.” She looks at it longingly. “I get at least one bite.”

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