Page 37 of New Girl in the City
Chapter Ten
We were sitting in my apartment with a box of pizza between us. I'd since poured us better actual real-life tasting wine, and we were drinking those out of wine glasses. I savored the flavor of the wine, letting it rest on my tongue for a moment filling my mouth with flavor before I swallowed and looked at the man across from me. He was like the wine we were drinking.
Dry. Bold. Mouthwatering.
He was also a touch bitter.
I licked my lips and set my glass down, watching him continue to eat. He was facing away from me, eyes on the window, a pizza slice in his hand. He’d been like that since we got here.
Silent.
Silent, and also not looking at me. He hadn’t said much after implying we were starting something, aside from ordering the pizza. He’d even gone in to do that on his own in some little hole in the wall place after grunting at me about what I wanted on my slice.
I was game for anything, I’d told him. Just no pineapple. That had gotten an appreciative smile from him before he’d vanished into the shop. A slice had turned out to be a whole pie. We had come here after that and I’d busied myself opening a fresh bottle of wine. But aside from a murmured thank you when I placed the wine beside him alongside a plate and a napkin, Liam had been silent.
Silent and staring out the window and not at me.
“What the fuck?” I blurted out and his eyes cut to me.
“What?” he asked, looking annoyed.
“Don’t you what me.”
“I’m gonna, because I have no idea what’s wrong right now.”
“How do you not know?” I asked and crossed my arms, leaning forward to look at him. “You hit a woman with we’re gonna start something and then you go silent. What the hell is that about? You don’t just drop that kind of thing! You explain it.”
“Oh yeah?” Now he looked amused and I glared at him.
“Yeah, so explain it.”
He cracked a smile, dropping the slice he’d been eating onto the plate in front of him. He said nothing for a second and just when I was about to start in on him again, he finally spoke.
“You look beautiful.”
“You told me that already,” I reminded him.
“Didn’t seem like a bad place to start, since you’re pissed and completely lit.”
“I am not!”
“Definitely are. Don’t tell me you’re fine because you’re not. That’s why I was quiet. Wanted to give you time to regroup, fill your belly. Maybe drink some water.” He looked pointedly at the glass of wine I was nearly done with.
I rolled my eyes. “I had a bad date.”
“You did,” he agreed.
“He made me drink shitty wine he probably stomped in a tub. I deserve good wine.”
He pulled a face. “Shit, you think he did?”
“I mean, he could have. You should have seen him with his stupid chest out and everything, asking me if I was a feminist.”
Liam said nothing but clucked his tongue and reached out taking the cup in hand and taking a sip. He watched me as he drank, and I found my eyes drawn to the way his throat moved when he swallowed. It made me think of other things he would do with his mouth, especially if we were ‘gonna start something.’
“You tell him that’s fucked?”
“I did...well, I mean sort of. I did tell him that I was a feminist, and that didn’t change the fact that he was a jerk or that he looked dumb.”
