Page 26 of Set the Moment
My spine stiffens at his words, but I don’t falter. I’ve had enough of his attitude, and though I want to repay his coldness with an attitude, I choose kindness.
“Oh, shut the hell up and take the help.”
That was kind enough.My phone pings as I gather my things and I check it quickly.
Aric
Can’t wait for tomorrow!!!
Fucking hell…
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Derek apologizes softly, reaching out for my arm as I snatch it away, backing up from him.
What’s up with people trying to touch me these days?
My annoyance flares to an all-time high as I think over how shitty this week has been.
I need a shower and seven freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, STAT.
Turning to Derek, I exhale a deep breath. “Have a nice night, Derek.”
nine
Sienna
“SolikeIwas…saying…”
I cringe as Aric takes another large slurp of the spaghetti he’d ordered, watching as some of the soupy tomato juice splatters on the table and his chin.
If you’d had told the Sienna of four months ago that she’d be sitting in a cramped Italian restaurant watching a man sloppily slurp up pasta and talk about the magic of Van Gogh’s brush strokes, I’d think you must’ve hit your head and entered a weird alternate planet in our multiverse.
Aric takes a huge gulp from his glass of water, his fingers leaving a red residue behind on the cup. My nose scrunches as the condensation on the cup causes the residual pasta juice to melt onto the table in a hopeless display of pitifulness.
I should’ve listened to my gut.
When Aric asked me out, I was skeptical—and for good reason. No man in this universe has had the accomplishment ofnotgiving methe ick. You know what I mean when I say that—that feeling of complete and utter disgust from something no matter how big or small, it makes you cringe viscerally.
Art History and I have always been mortal enemies considering information refuses to settle in my brain for long periods of time. I can never remember a person whom I’ve just met name or when something occurs, which is why I hate the subject.
The same subject I've been forced to listen to for the past forty-five minutes.
“So as I was saying, little pig—get it, because you have pink hair?—Maybe you can snog something bigger a little later…” Aric winks.
Oh hell no…
Before I can stop myself, my chair screeches as it slides against the cheap hardwood floors of Mike’s Italiano.
Are all men like this?
I wasted two hours of my Sunday getting primmed and pressed by Cleo and Georgia for this date, only to sit here and have this asshole make sexual innuendos, ride Van Gogh’s dick for twenty minutes, and then proceed to relate my hair color to a fucking pig?!
Taking a nice long sip of the untouched glass of the cabernet that Aric had ordered, I grimace.
I fucking hate wine.
“Woah, baby girl…you ready to get out of here or something?” Aric questions me, biting his bottom lip. It takes everything in me not to let the two bites of the gnocchi I’d eaten come back up.
Aric had been a cool guy—until he shoved two glasses of cabernet down his thick throat and proceeded to make innuendos and talk dead artists for the better half of this “date”.
