Cold, dead eyes met his across the table. “I'm not eating anything from a restaurant with such shitty food. Who puts peanuts in salad dressing?”
Alarm filled Li-Bao's eyes. “Are you allergic?”
“No.” Leslie snorted. “As if my body chemistry were that weak!”
Dylan looked at the menu, eyes zipping up to the Salads section. He read aloud: “Vegan Spring Roll in a Bowl. A lively mix of spring roll vegetables tossed in our famous peanut-ginger dressing.” He looked pointedly at his date. “It says right there in the salad you ordered that peanuts are part of the deal.”
“Excuse me?” Her shoulders tensed, eyes turned into laser beams under the wings of eyelash.
“Do I need to say it louder?” he asked – louder.
Li-Bao's face was impassive, but her eyes sparkled. He knew the drill. As a kid, he'd worked enough customer-facing jobs to know that people could be assholes, and the folks working in restaurants and retail had very little power to deal with being treated like shit.
This time, though, he had the power to help.
Leslie's eyes narrowed. It was a miracle those eyelashes didn't turn into a thatch. “I did not come on this date to be treated like I'm the one who is wrong,” she hissed at him, eyes roaming over his body. “No matter how hot you are.”
Dylan stood, reaching into his back pocket. He opened his wallet, peeled off three twenties, and threw them on the table to cover the bill. Then he handed three more to Li-Bao, who was shocked.
“Here, Miss. Allow me to apologize for my date's rudeness.”
“I AM NOT RUDE!”
He let his eyes roam over her, then settled on her hair. “Yes. You are. You ordered food clearly labeled with ingredients you don't like and then you interrupted the server because you couldn't wait two minutes like a decent human being. So yes, you're being rude, and – ”
An entire glass of iced tea with five Splendas stirred in hit him straight in the face.
He was lucky she hung onto the glass and set it down with an attention-seeking slam.
“You want rude? There's your rude!” Leslie screamed, grabbing her purse, storming off. Every ten steps or so, she turned around and flipped him the bird, until the crowd swallowed her up.
Li-Bao rushed off and returned with a stack of bar towels. “Sir, I am so sorry.”
“Sorry? For what? You're not the one with bad taste in dates.”
She snorted. “First, I'm sorry she did that to you. Just expressing empathy, something that woman clearly knows nothing about. And second, you have no idea how bad my taste in dates really is. The last woman I had a first date with brought a stuffed unicorn with her and insisted I talk to it instead of her.”
“Was she a ventriloquist?”
“No.”
They laughed conspiratorially while Dylan looked at his black t-shirt, which clung to his pecs.
Quite a few women walking by eyed him, too.
“Uh, you don't have to overtip like that,” Li-Bao said, handing back some of the twenties.
He stopped her. “No. I do. I can,” he said, softer.
Confused eyes met his.
“Let's just say I'm paying it forward.”
“That I understand. And thank you. Some day I'll do the same.” She looked at the mess of the table. “Let me move you to a different table.”
“Nah. I'm done. Unlike my date, I liked the peanut sauce.”
“Unlike your date, you can read a menu.”
Their shared laughter was so loud, but felt good.
Bzzzz.
His phone gave him a good excuse to take his leave, the chill of the air against his wet clothes making him walk faster. He wasn't that far from his apartment, thankfully, so a quick walk home, a short shower and change of clothes, and he'd be fine.
And now he had a good story to tell Mike. Might even make the guy crack a smile.
His phone, though, dictated the rest of his day.
Fire check at Stohlman Industries, the text from Murphy read. Artiz is out with some stomach bug. Need you to do it for me.
Dylan groaned. He hated doing these corporate property checks.
Can't you get Damonte to do it? He's so much better at this and actually likes doing it.
Damonte's on a three-alarm call right now.
Damn.
Fine, Dylan texted back. You know I hate dealing with suits, but fine.
Hey, man, we all gotta earn our paychecks, right? Murphy zapped back.
Dylan closed his eyes and laughed, the sound a huff of mixed emotions.
Yeah. Right. Earn a paycheck.
Why, exactly, was he still earning a paycheck again? He had more money than he knew what to do with from Jill's trust. Way more.
How's your wife? He texted, wincing after he sent it, realizing it was out of character.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Murphy's wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer a week ago. The guy opened up because he had to take leave time.
As Dylan picked up his steps and walked faster toward home, he wondered if he'd pissed Murphy off. Wasn't hard to do – the guy was old-school cranky, but one hell of a fire captain.
By the time he got home and was in the shower, his mind drifted to other things.
Curvy, blonde things.
Like that woman in his dream.
It took less than a minute to whack off, between his own filthy imagination, the soapy suds, and the shower privacy, and as he dried off later he grimaced slightly.
Damn. He was desperate.
Jacking off to a dream woman? He needed to get laid.
Bad.
Donning his work uniform, he grabbed a quick sandwich before heading out the door, shoving thoughts of his sad little lunch date out of his mind. Women like Leslie were all over the dating apps, vapid and focused on values that didn't matter to him. Conjuring a woman with meaning was clearly the dark work of his subconscious.
How did he make her real?
Stohlman Industries was like every other skyscraper in town, big and annoyingly devoid of one whiff of personality. He walked into the gleaming glass and metal foyer and looked up.
Way up.
His job was simple: make sure the fire extinguishers were in place. Check for safety protocols. It was nearly like masturbation, a quick process designed to make corporate overlords feel good, a shallow and simple way to relieve pressure and get systems in homeostasis. Some HR drone would take Dylan's report and send it to some liability lawyer and that would be that.
He was a drone in the system, and nothing more.
Ding!
The elevator opened and he climbed on, shuffling to the back, making room for the people climbing aboard. And then suddenly – hello.
If he'd been less aware, he'd have rubbed his eyes to convince himself he wasn't in a dream, because there she was.
Dream girl.
All creamy skin and thick hips, blonde hair down her back, the woman who walked into the elevator and turned around, giving him full view of an ass that went on for centuries, was damn close to the one he'd created in his reveries.
A little too close for comfort.
Like his pants.
The guy standing next to her cut his eyes to the right, clearly looking for some boobage, and the action made Dylan instantly pissed. Dude had no right to ogle her.
If anyone should get an eyeful, it was him.
Wait. No. That wasn't acceptable, either.