“I know, right!” he exclaimed, completely missing my dry tone. “You do the dirty details. I clean it up and buff it off to show it to the right people. We’re golden!”
I hated how loudly he was proclaiming the imbalance of work between us as a virtue. I forced my loathing down with more risotto, scooping it fast and swallowing quickly, uncaring of how it made me look.
“Whoa! You’re powering through that, Rosa. Slow down! Enjoy some wine. We’re not on the clock anymore. You don’t need to rush through a meal. The bigwigs aren’t watching. It’s just us here.”
The way his voice lowered into a subdued, enticing—or what he and his fans at the office would consider enticing—tone made my utensil-wielding motion slow to a halt.
Oh god. Is he coming onto me? This really is a date, isn’t it? Oh god, no.
Every other thought in my mind, like the promise of how good it was going to feel after my shower tonight to settle down and rewatch some Farscape at home, was banished as I suddenly felt myself going on full alert.
He took a sip of the wine to punctuate his earlier statement and eyed me from across the table with a telling smirk that had me lowering my hands from the criss-cross-patterned tablecloth to clench onto my grey pencil skirt. My eyes fixed themselves on the table, following the lines on the tablecloth back and forth as a means of distraction. I couldn’t look him in the eye for fear of encouraging him further.
“You’re so tense, Rosa. I can see it in your shoulders. You need to ease up. I know how to give some great massages, yeah? I’m not a professional, but I’ve gotten compliments.”
The idea of his hands being anywhere near me made my shoulders tense up even more against the sides of my neck. I chanced a look to see him eating again, seemingly unaware of all the negative signs I was giving off. I couldn’t tell if he was that inattentive, or if he was that self-assured that he thought that he didn’t need to confirm that he was having his desired effect on me.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I stuttered. “Your hands already seem pretty busy as they are.”
Another boisterous laugh left him as he leaned back against the cushion of the booth, the volume of it contrasting my small attempt at deflective humour. His raucous voice made me suddenly conscious of the other restaurant patrons and where their gazes might be turning. As I saw a few glances thrown our way, I could only imagine what they were thinking of me.
“I love your sense of humour, Rosa! You should break it out more often. We’ll make an even better fit,” he proclaimed as he came down from his fit of laughter.
A shudder ran through me at those last words, my mind running away with all the implications they brought. Against my better judgement, I found myself asking a single word: “Fit?”
“Oh yeah! That’s why we’re both here tonight after all. The start of something big! Our dynamic has been proven in the office. I think it’s time we make it official.”
“Official?” The word numbly left my lips as I felt myself instinctively reaching for my black purse.
“You got it!”
“So this is… what I think it is then?” I began to drag my purse to my side slowly.
“You know?” He raised a brow. “Damn, I thought I’d kept it pretty tightly under wraps.”
I couldn’t fathom the idea of what this man considered subtlety. I readied myself for a quick exit as I meekly pressed the conversation further, “You’re trying to ask me out, right?”
Somehow, the outrageously confident look on his face turned blank before he smiled again and began howling in laughter. This time, I was sure the entire restaurant was looking at us. I could feel the urge to sink into the floor consuming me completely as the leaden sensation of humiliation washed over me.
His laughter died down after far too long and he wiped a tear from his eye. He sighed and shook his head before speaking through the giggling-tremors that marked the end of his fit. “No! I must’ve given you the wrong idea.” He slapped the table before continuing. “I’m not at all interested in you that way. But don’t worry. This isn’t the first time this has happened, actually. Funny story!”
I couldn’t help but feel a little insulted by his blunt words, but far more of me was relieved to confirm this wasn’t a date. I sighed as I loosened my grip on my purse, then found myself retorting just as bluntly, “Then why the hell did you invite me here of all places? Why not a bar or something?”
“I told you… I love the shrimp scampi.” He plucked the last of his main course into his mouth to illustrate the point. “And I wanted to celebrate!”
“Celebrate? You mean all this is for completing the project today?” I asked, digging back into the last remnants of my risotto.
“Yes, but also to celebrate something else too.”
His excitable addition nearly made me choke on the last bite of my meal. I took a long moment to properly adjust everything in my mouth so I could swallow my risotto properly and asked him, “Something else?”
“The bigwigs let me in on it, so I wanted to surprise you before they did. You’re getting promoted!”
I could feel my brows rising as the news hit me and it took a few moments before I was able to comprehend what I’d heard. For the first time, I felt myself begin to smile.
“I’m being promoted?”
“Oh yeah! They were pretty impressed with the presentation you put together, and were all about how great a team we made!” Jason was grinning ear-to-ear.
