The host—or maître d’ as he was probably called in a place like this—took our picture. I smiled prettily, tilted my head just so, played the part. Eric uploaded it to Twitter before he said another word to me. Part of me thought he’d smack me on the butt and send me out the door now that he’d gotten what he really wanted, but he just took my arm again as we were led to our table. Where more photo opportunities awaited.
Once the waiter, clad in all white, filled our water glasses and left us alone with our menus, I took a sip and surveyed him over my glass. “I draw the line at sharing a plate of spaghetti with you, Lady and the Tramp style.”
He chuckled. “Sorry about the picture, but you know how it goes.”
I certainly did, but we could at least attempt to enjoy the evening by getting to know each other. “Tell me about your blog.”
He launched into a monologue about batting averages and pitching speeds, all with a lot of hand motions. I nodded politely, understanding none of it. My mom would appreciate this conversation so much more than me. I rested my chin on my hands while he kept talking. He hardly paused to take a breath, let alone for me to respond. So I kept nodding, while my mind drifted elsewhere. To Paxton. And my silent phone.
I checked again. He hadn’t texted me all day. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d gone a whole day without talking to him in some capacity. It threw off my whole equilibrium. I debated texting Elise to see if she’d talked to him today. Though that might’ve been more desperate than just texting Paxton myself.
“You should’ve seen the picture I got of that guy’s jump. The ball sailed into his glove. I couldn’t have planned that hit any better,” Eric said.
It took me a few seconds to realize he had stopped talking and now expected me to respond. “Oh. Wow. Cool.”
He leaned back in his chair with the kind of smugness that would’ve ended a regular date for me. “I’m going to be bigger than Barstool Sports one day. When Mizzou went to the NCAA Tournament, I …”
I tuned him out again and went back to checking my phone. It’s not as if he’d stop talking about himself long enough to ask me any questions anyway. Maybe after dinner I’d stop by work to tell Elise what was going on with Eric. I should’ve told her about it already, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear all the reasons why it was a bad idea.
The waiter stopped back to take our order, saving me from trying to pretend like I was listening to the one-sided conversation. “We’ll both have the salmon,” Eric said.
My back immediately went up. He hadn’t bothered to ask if I had an allergy or if I even liked salmon. It was one thing to bore me to tears, and another thing entirely to order for me. Just like he’d put his hand on my back to steer me at the game. A big part of why we were in this mess. As if he didn’t think I could do anything on my own. Or maybe he just moved through life like that, thinking he knew best, because the world had always rearranged itself to accommodate the whims of a pretty boy with a perfect smile.
“Excuse me.” I held up a finger. “I’ll actually have the stuffed chicken.”
Eric’s lips thinned and I shot him a look that dared him to challenge me. After a beat of uncomfortable silence, the waiter left and Eric took out his phone to check how many retweets we’d gotten on our picture.
“Two thousand RTs and it’s only been up for about ten minutes.” He turned his phone to me, beaming. “I had a manager for the Royals contact me today. He said he might be able to get me into the locker room for the next game.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said with all the enthusiasm of getting a root canal.
“Maybe you can drive down next week.” He brightened as he sat up straighter. “Hey, you could even take a video and post it to your YouTube channel.”
“That’s not really my brand.”
“What’s wrong? You don’t seem into this.” He set his phone aside. “And you keep looking at your texts. Are you talking to another guy?”
“Would you really care if I were?”
He leaned forward, his voice low as he hovered over the candlelight on our table. “I’m not seeing anyone else right now.”
“Are you telling me that we’re exclusive?” I laid a hand over my heart and batted my eyelashes. “Will I get to wear your class ring, too?”
He huffed out a breath through his nose. “All I’m saying is, it wouldn’t be a good look if you got caught on camera with another guy.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I rolled my neck, trying to loosen the tension building in there. I motioned to the quiet and stuffy dining room with the fancy wall art and linen tablecloths. “This is a little out of my element.”
“Yeah, I know.” He frowned at his water glass as he twirled the stem between his thumb and finger. “But it’s public enough to be a story, and private enough for us to control it.”
For him to control it. I hadn’t done anything other than show up. “Do you have a PR person or something? Because it sounds like you’re trying to maneuver me.”
“I’m not.” Eric paused when the waiter brought our drinks and salads. “I thought we’d come to an agreement, that you wanted this too.”
“I don’t know what I want.” The subscribers were nice, but there was a huge difference between sending out some cheesy tweets and meeting this guy in person. Like we’d stepped into something that would eventually pull us under.
“It’s not so bad, sharing a meal with me, is it?” He turned on that charming grin, and when he tilted his head, light reflected off his shiny teeth.
“It’s still too early to tell.” I picked at my salad, which had orange shavings on top that might’ve been carrot and little boiled eggs that probably belonged to a snooty bird, like a quail or something equally pretentious. “But either way, doesn’t this feel kind of gross?”
“Whoa.” He sat back in his chair. “I’ve been called a lot of things. Never that.”
“Not you.” This guy and his ego. As if all his new Twitter fans didn’t coddle him enough. “I mean this thing we’re doing. Doesn’t it feel like we’re being manipulative?”
“I’m on a date with a cute girl—what’s manipulative about that?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, here’s the thing.” He reached across the table for my hand. “If this hadn’t blown up, I still would’ve wanted to have dinner with you. Maybe not someplace this nice, but I would’ve wanted to see you again.”
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t texted me, other than to give me the address of this restaurant. He tweeted at me, but he hadn’t DM’d me since that first time. He’d had the perfect opportunity to get my number at the game, when we were still unknown strangers who happened to be sitting next to each other. While I probably wasn’t any better, especially since I’d spent a good portion of his monologue checking to see if Paxton had texted me, it still made me feel sick.
Sick of Eric, of me, of this entire thing.
He kept his gaze on me, like he was waiting for me to tell him I wanted to see him again too. And maybe I had the morning after the game, but that felt like forever ago. I wasn’t even sure if I was still the same person as I was then.