Page 24 of Pride and Protest
She waited for him to go on and gave up. “And what did you choose?”
“Uh, Thanksgiving. It was the holiday with the most food. Little did I know Thanksgiving changes every year.” He pointed to her ballet flats.
Liza laughed ungraciously. “So now your birthday is just on a dry-ass November twenty-fourth or something?” She slipped off the flats. It wasn’t aterribleidea to dry her flats over a bagel toaster. She was just surprised that it was his idea. What did he know of making do?
“Laugh all you want. I’ll hit Thanksgiving again someday.” He turned the toaster to its highest setting. Now he was actively avoiding looking at her rainbow-painted toes. “How old are you anyway? Nineteen, twenty?”
Liza curled her toes inward. “Twenty-sixwitha master’s degree. And, dude, thirtysomething’s not that old.”
“I’m old enough to have never uttered the word ‘dude’ in serious conversation.”
“All that tells me is that you’re missing out on America’s most zeitgeisty phrases.” Dorsey pulled open the stairwell door, and Liza stepped out of the office—bare feet cold against the polished cement floor.
“How did you know I was down here?” Liza asked. She was sure she had slipped out undetected. Again, she wondered,had he been watching me?
“The chair wasn’t pushed in,” Dorsey said blankly, ushering her toward the stairs.
“See, you would have been great at this game!” Liza bounced good-naturedly up the steps. The game and the quick nap had worked wonders for her mood and had gotten her mind off that embarrassing shirt business. “Do you think you can beat me to the next floor, old-timer?” Liza challenged.
“Of course I can. But I don’twantto—”
Liza jetted up the flight of stairs before he could finish. A throaty laugh escaped her when she saw him quickly step, then break into an all-out sprint up the flight of stairs. He caught up with her effortlessly, his long legs doubling and tripling the steps. Dorsey never lost his momentum once he reached the top and stumbled up the stairs behind Liza, nearly tripping to avoid her bare feet. He looked as if he would totter for a minute and pulled Liza close to him, using her to steady himself.
“You’re going down with me!” he said. His laugh was small and rusty—unused, Liza guessed. The way his arms wrapped around her, the way his lopsided smile lit up his features,beautiful.
She bit her lip. Squirming in his grasp, she was prepared to tease him for losing but found a look in his eyes that stopped her cold. The grip on her waist changed from slight to firm. Things seemed to go in slow motion from here. Something had flared up in him—the gleam in his dark eyes, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, spelled trouble. How could he not see her pulse jumping out of her throat? Up close, he seemed impossibly tall, with a shadowy beard already growing in. She wanted to reach up and stroke the dark whiskers, anticipating that bristled feel. It was the second time in as many hours that she found herself pressed against his body, and the effect was drugging. She leaned in, waiting for something, waiting for him. Dorsey looked down at her, and the surrounding air seemed to bubble up like they were two trinkets at the bottom of a glass of champagne.
Then gently, so tentatively, he brushed his lips to hers. Was it a kiss? Or did their mouths just accidentally pass each other? Every touch was a featherlight question. Had he grazed her breast? Did he brush her hips? Was that his breath on the slope of her shoulder? It was perhaps better that his touch was so light as to be indiscernible. Liza feared Dorsey might brand her if he touched her with any deliberate pressure.
His expression changed, and he released her suddenly. Liza felt like she’d suddenly burst out into oozing sores the way Dorsey acted. David’s slurred voice sounded through the door.
“I found them in the stairwell!”
Liza saw Jennifer stride toward them with eyes full of questions, then halt and pretend to check her phone messages.
She’d give a million dollars to get into that woman’s head. What made smart, capable women like her chase men who were only interested in themselves?
Dorsey straightened his trousers and smoothed imaginedwrinkles from his shirt. “Like I said, this is silly. I am an adult. You would do well to remember that.” The chill in his voice was definitive. His tone was an ice pick popping the fizzy bubble of warmth that had formed around them.
I guess he suddenly remembered I’m not Ms. Venezuela.
How dare he make her feel childish and stupid and unattractive in one dismissive sentence. Liza cocked her head. He had tricked her somehow, and now she was angry at herself.
“You know what your problem is?”
Dorsey pulled the door open wider, nudging her to exit the stairwell.
“You mean besides being a friendless, vain sociopath?” he offered wearily.
“Oh wait, I actually think that covers it,” Liza snapped.Where is that smoldering man from just two minutes ago? Liza, Hot Waiter does not exist.
“I went downstairs to get her,” Dorsey said, his voice cracking slightly. “She would have been hiding on the eighth floor for days.”
What made his pronouncement more peculiar was that there was no audience for his big fake show of joviality. Janae and Jennifer were scrolling on their phones, and David had already passed out again on the chair.
“Do you know whatyourproblem is?” Dorsey whispered to her.
He had been thinking of a comeback.Ha! Slow on the draw. He turned on his heels so swiftly that Liza stepped back to anticipate him falling.
