If that’s not courage, I don’t know what is.
But tonight… Jenna is simply a beautiful dinner companion I’m eager to get to know better.
When I picked her up, I wasn’t prepared to be as dazzled as I was. She’s wearing a black silky jumpsuit belted at her waist. The legs are somewhat baggy but taper at the ankle, and she’s wearing black stiletto sandals. The top is long-sleeved, cut straight across at her collarbone, and she’s wearing a red and black–patterned scarf knotted at the side of her throat. Her hair is curled, worn long over her shoulders, and her makeup is perfection, as if she’s not wearing any. Just golden skin, long lashes, and plump lips coated in something shiny that makes me think of kissing it right off her.
When I told her she was stunning, she blushed, tugging slightly at the scarf. I took her hand and pulled it away, holding on to it as we walked out of her building.
And now here we sit at our private table tucked in the back of a highly recommended French restaurant. Wine has been tasted and poured.
I hold up my glass, and she mimics me. “Here’s to an amazing first date.”
Clinking her glass against mine, she smiles. “I’ll drink to that.”
Chuckling, I sip the Malbec we’d decided on after both having a taste, because I don’t believe in one person making the choice. The sommelier looked offended, but fuck him. I found it fun, if not slightly intimate, that I tasted the wine and then passed it across to Jenna, who didn’t hesitate to take a sip after me.
Jenna sets her glass down with a soft hmmm. “That’s good.”
“I notice you didn’t correct me when I called this a first date,” I say, placing my glass down on the crisp linen tablecloth.
She smirks. “You’re being awfully optimistic.”
“That is a word most people would use to describe me.”
Settling back into her chair, she tips her head. “What other words would people use?”
Deep question to start the evening—I think about it a moment. “Stubborn.”
She flashes a smile and laughs. “I get that vibe from you.”
“My family would say I have a very hard head. That when I set my mind to something, I don’t deviate, and I’m tenacious in my pursuits.”
“That could be a good or bad thing,” she says, fingers playing with the stem of her wineglass. “You said you had sisters. Any other siblings?”
Nodding, I push the bread plate back a bit to make room and cross my arms on the table. “Four sisters and two brothers. Seven of us in all.”
“Wow,” Jenna exclaims, eyes sparkling with fascination. “Okay, so tell me one word each of the siblings would use to describe you.”
“You are not pulling any punches in this get-to-know-you phase, are you?”
“Well, a girl can only google so much about a guy,” she quips, and I bust out laughing.
“Okay… let me think.” I tap a finger to my chin, doing a quick mental rundown of my brothers and sisters. “Melanie would say I’m hardworking.”
Jenna motions with her hand to give her more.
“She’s a doctor, practices family medicine back in our hometown, and she’s thirty-three. She appreciates a strong work ethic.”
Jenna picks up her glass, takes a sip, and then leans back in her chair, holding her glass before her. “Next one.”
My mouth curves upward. “You asked for it. Celia is also thirty-three—Melanie’s fraternal twin—an accountant who would call me stuffy. Which is odd since she’s an accountant and that’s the very definition of such.”
Jenna laughs, and I rattle off the remainder in quick succession because I know my siblings so well, I can easily name my one characteristic that would stand out to them. “Marianne is an elementary school teacher. She’s thirty and would call me kind. Estella is twenty-eight and plays the violin for the Iowa State Philharmonic. She would call me strong—not in body, but in mind. Jackson is twenty-five and plays minor league baseball. He’d at first call me cocky just to be an ass, but then admit I am genuine. And Sam is the baby. At twenty, he’s still in college, but he’d call me wise.”
“Just wow,” Jenna murmurs with an admiring shake of her head. “Your family sounds amazing—and so accomplished.”
“That they are.” My chest fills with fondness upon thinking about them all at the same time.
“And your parents?”
“My dad, Jeff, is a dentist, and my mom, Sarah, is also an elementary school teacher. My dad would agree with Melanie that I’m a hard worker, but also as the oldest kid, I put myself into the position of secondary parent to the others. My mom would focus on my kindness because she’s the one who instilled it in me. Or rather, threatened to kill me if I ever treated anyone with unkindness.”
Jenna appraises me before admitting, “You’re nice and all, Gage, but I’m a little in love with your family right now.”
I bark out a laugh because this is exactly what I thought Jenna had hiding under her shy wariness. A brilliant sense of humor.
“What about your family?” I ask. “I know about Emory and how you’re a mixed family.”
Taking another drink of her wine, Jenna sets the glass down and then leans forward with arms crossed on the table to match mine, as if we’re huddled in, eager to soak up every word the other person says. I try not to be distracted by how the candlelight makes her blond hair shimmer and her eyes glow like whiskey.
“Like I told you, my dad is English and was married to Emory’s mom, who died in childbirth. My mom actually worked for him, and they were married by the time Emory was two. I came along a year later.”
“It’s odd Emory has an accent and you don’t,” I observe.
“Yeah… it’s interesting for sure. We lived in London until I was twelve and then moved to the States. I had a bit of a British accent, but when we came here, I totally lost mine. I think I tended to mimic my mom’s accent. Emory still has her accent, but it’s not very strong. My dad’s is still full-blown.”
“And what do your parents do?”
“My dad is a hotelier and my mother is in marketing. That’s how they met. He’d hired her to be the chief marketing officer in his company, and she moved from Los Angeles to London to work for him.”
“And they had an illicit workplace love affair?” he guesses with a salacious waggle of his eyebrows.
I giggle. “I don’t know about illicit. But they did fall in love fast. At any rate, he franchised his company in the States, and we all moved to LA.”
“And you went to college?” I ask, but before she can answer, our waiter arrives to tell us the specials.
When he leaves, we both ignore the menus while sipping our wine. “I majored in journalism at UCLA,” Jenna says with a mirthless laugh. “Even though I knew print was dying, I had this dream of being an editor of a big-city newspaper one day. I started out as a copy editor at the LA Times and did some ghostwriting for the editorial section.”
“Fascinating,” I murmur, envisioning her at a desk as she types out the perfect words.
“Yeah, well… it was a career probably destined to go nowhere. Like I said, print is dying. Everything is digital these days.”