“I won’t turn you down.”
She grabs items from the fridge then sets to work. Lulu slices the tops off small green peppers, tosses them into a skillet sizzling with olive oil, and sautés them with some salt and pepper. The pan sizzles, and she stirs.
She scoops up a pepper onto a spatula and brandishes it. Wiggling an eyebrow, she asks, “Can you handle the heat?”
That question feels like the doublest of double entendres. “Bring. It. On.”
“You’re so tough.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” If she knew the armor I had wielded over the years, she’d think I was made of metal.
She blows on the pepper then dangles it in front of me. “Catch it?”
“Do it.”
She tosses over a pepper.
I’m a frog. I stick out my tongue and catch it. It’s hot, but I’ve never had trouble handling spice.
I bite into the pepper, and it nearly scalds my tongue, but I crunch away, chewing with as much of a smile as I can muster, even as the green goodie torches my mouth. She watches me, appreciation etched into those eyes.
“Impressed?” I want to impress her. Hell, if we were in the 1950s, I’d be the guy on the beach, flexing his biceps for the girl.
“Don’t you know? Nearly everything you do impresses me.”
And the bicep curls worked.
Nice job, self.
She stretches for a cupboard, reaching to grab an open bag of popcorn. She dips her hand inside, then backhands a kernel my way. I bend, catching that on my tongue too. “Now that is doubly impressive. In fact, I might need to enter you in a competition at SeaWorld.”
“Arf, arf,” I say, imitating a seal.
“Speaking of sea creatures, I have on my dolphin panties today.”
“Seriously?”
“Want to see?”
What the hell? The woman just said we need to stay in the friend zone, and now she’s offering to show me her panties. Can we say women are confusing?
“Is that a trick question? Are you testing me?”
She laughs. “What’s the answer?”
I move closer. “I always want to see your underwear. So don’t ask a silly question again.”
“What if I want to see your underwear?”
“You’re like an open flame, Lulu.”
She laughs. “I know. Sorry. Grab me the green beans?”
We shift gears, and I help her as she stir-fries green beans, sautés chicken, plates it all, and sets the table. It’s just us and this delicious spread she’s whipped up—and the big elephant in the room.
Our kiss.
We only discussed if it should happen again, not how much we want it to. Her words from earlier echo—I want us to date and go out and kiss like the world is ending.
The elephant is trundling across her apartment, rattling the pictures on the walls. We eat, and the tension spreads across my shoulders. This tiptoeing won’t do. We aren’t some guy and girl who met at a bar. We aren’t coworkers who’ve known each other for a year and finally gave in to the wild flirtation we’ve had in the elevator. We are people who talk. We use our words.
After we finish, I say, “We should really talk about the elephant.”
“It was a particularly wonderful elephant.”
That’s the oddest compliment I’ve ever received for a kiss, but I love it.
“It was.” I replay that kiss for the five thousandth time today. I stare at her lips, remembering how they felt against mine.
“You’re looking at my mouth,” she whispers.
A weight slides off my shoulder and thuds to the ground. It feels like freedom. I can look at Lulu and speak some of the truth. “Your mouth is quite lush. Soft. Inviting.”
She shivers, swaths of her curly hair falling across half of her face, curtaining her green eye. I reach an arm across and tuck the curls behind her ear as best I can. I want to see into those eyes. I want to read them. “Lulu, what are we doing?”
She stares up at me from underneath those long lashes. “Remembering earlier today?”
“It was mind-blowing.”
