Then my smile truly lit up my face.
“You drew this?”
“Wrote. Designed. Drew.” He handed me the comic, and I gently thumbed through it. “Howard helped me get this copy printed, but I’m looking to produce a whole series.”
I wasn’t a connoisseur of comic art, but he had a bold style. “Wow, Tristan. This is amazing. I love how rich the colors are.”
“Thanks. I had a hunch you’d understand how important that is to me. Why I entered the contest last night.”
“To cover the costs of production?”
“Defray the costs.” He took the comic back and slipped it back into a plastic case.
“Oh.” Had he asked me here to convince me to drop out of the Chagrin Challenge? That could be a win-win situation. He’d lose a competitor, and I’d have an excuse to quit. “I mean, I wasn’t all that serious about the contest anyway.”
His eyebrows shot up. “No! I didn’t mean to ask you to forfeit.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and pink dotted his smooth, perfect cheek. “I was hoping I might impress you, to be honest.”
“Really?” That was an unexpected twist. Tristan Spencer trying to impress me? “I’m duly impressed. I swear.”
The waitress dropped off the bill, and Tristan glanced at it before turning back to face me with a curious grin.
“So.”
The word hung there, as if he expected me to be the kind of person who could fill voids in conversation. Like I was the loquacious person I always wanted to be. Could I be that?
I tilted my head. “So?”
Maybe my chatty side needed some work. Did he want me to make the next move? Had Tristan the charmer grown shy over time?
“So what now?”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen next, but it didn’t involve Eros. Not tonight with the ticking time bomb in my uterus. I wasn’t sure the brick I’d taped to my underwear was going to be there for me when I most needed it. If only I had my backpack, I’d make a quick plunge into the nearest drugstore and rid myself of the sword of Damocles hanging between my legs. As it was, I was attuned to any sudden signs the flood waters were rising.
“I should head home.”
Tristan got up. “I could take you if it’s not too far.”
I suddenly knew what I wanted to happen next: A kiss good night, then wait for a phone call. “Yeah? That would be nice.”
He pulled out his wallet and counted out the bills. “Come with me.”
I followed him off the patio, and he turned up the sidewalk, saying, “The reason I didn’t come pick you up is that my car’s in the shop.”
“Oh.” That was a decent excuse, though he could have explained it earlier. “So how are you getting around?”
“I’ve got a set of wheels, but I didn’t know how comfortable you’d be on the back of a motorcycle.”
My heart sped up. A motorcycle sounded super sexy, but it would have definitely traumatized me. We turned a corner, and I began thinking up excuses. I wasn’t sure how best to extricate myself without coming across like a coward. Which I was. I loved the speed and freedom of my bike, but motorcycles were out of my league. Just like Tristan Spencer, apparently.
“It’s right up here.”
He approached the only vehicle on the side street with two wheels—and I stifled a laugh. Motorcycle was an exaggeration. It was just a powder blue Vespa.
“It’s cute.”
He patted the seat. “Are you up for some adventure?”
Two miles on the back of a Vespa? I could do that.
“Will you promise to take the back streets the whole way?” I touched the handlebar. “And drive super slow?”
He handed me a helmet. “Hop on.”
I boarded the Vespa, acutely aware of that damn cinder block from Howard’s historical hygiene machine. I couldn’t wait to get home and return to the sanity of modern sanitary napkins. Tristan put his helmet on and took his place in front of me.
We drove up Highland Avenue, pressed together. The dogwood trees had bloomed earlier, but some still held on to their flowers. The weather was perfect, and I had my legs straddled around the thighs of one of the hottest guys I’d ever seen, once upon a time. It was a scene out of my wildest fantasies circa sophomore year in college. I wondered if at some point “past me” felt a disturbance in the Force.
With my arms coiled around his torso, it occurred to me that the out-of-reach Tristan Spencer I’d crushed on in college wasn’t a real person. The real Tristan was more like this Vespa: less sexy, less scary, and maybe more my speed.
All my uneasiness transformed into excitement, and I felt a voltage spark, a growing hope that Tristan had set this whole situation up in order to get my hands on him, to make a move on me. I couldn’t help letting my schoolgirl imagination play out, wondering how his mouth would feel against mine.
By the time we arrived at my place, my hair had fallen loose. I tried to twist it back up as I hopped off the Vespa, but it wasn’t obeying. Tristan swung a leg over the seat of his motorbike. The effect was less than heroic, like a beautiful real-life elf dismounting a small pony. A powder blue pony. I stifled a snicker.
He looked up at the town house, then scanned up the street. “This is where you live? It’s so nice.”
“Yeah. I share it with Aida and Marco.”
I glanced up at the second-story windows to check for light, hoping they could let me in.
His eyes followed mine. “Are they home?”
I suddenly fast-forwarded through his possible intent. Would he walk me to the door for that kiss good night, or did he want to be invited inside? Really get to know me.
No. That couldn’t happen. Not tonight. Not with the weather forecast in my southern hemisphere.
I backed toward the porch. “So, thank you for dinner.”
He strode toward me, his clear blue eyes shimmering with the last of the evening light, and I retreated. My foot snagged on the lowest step, and I lost my balance and fell on my ass. Oof.
He laughed, then held his hand out to help me back up. Standing on that lower step put me eye-to-eye, inches from him. He reached up and touched my hair. “Hey, cool colors. I hadn’t noticed it. That’s rad.”
I pulled at the strands. “Thanks?” He didn’t move away, and I gathered my courage to mirror him, touch his hair. “I like what you’ve done with yours.”
“Yeah? I was planning to grow it back out. What do you think?”
“I think it would look good either way.” It was still long enough that I could grip it, and my fingers threaded through his locks and tightened. I told myself I should let him make the first move, but I was lying if I said I didn’t want to at least find out what Tristan Spencer tasted like. I tugged him closer, and as his lips met mine, a sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Had we kissed before?
I drew back to give him a chance to decide what to do next, and he licked his lips, then leaned in again for another kiss. And yeah, it felt weirdly familiar for a moment, but I relaxed and let it be. Kissing was a luxury, and I could easily lose myself in the swift currents of desire.
A car slowed in the road, and Aida called out her window: “We’re home.”