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“Do you go to the coffee shop on weekends?” I asked. I hadn’t heard of her doing that. At least, none of my coworkers had mentioned it.

“I’m nicer on the weekends,” she said.

“Oh, so what you’re saying is that you are nice to everyone else but me, is that it?” I said.

“No. I’m mean to Lark too. I’m just meaner to you, specifically,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

Tenley lifted one shoulder. “It’s just fun.”

With just three words, she’d completely turned off my attraction to her. Thankfully.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Come on. You have fun with it too,” she said, nudging my leg under the table.

“I don’t,” I said.

“Yeah, you do,” she said, nudging me again.

* * *

Our lobster dinner arrived, and I was looking forward to seeing Tenley dismember a lobster and not make a complete mess.

“Cheers,” she said, holding up her lobster. I picked mine up and tapped it to hers, water dribbling out of them onto the plate. I moved my lobster to a new plate and went immediately for the shrimp. Tenley ripped open the steaming bag of clams and I watched as she popped them open to get at the meat inside.

“You should see your face right now,” she said, laughing as she dunked a clam in a cup of butter. I’d thought she might be a priss and not want to get dirty with this meal, but I was soon proved wrong.

“Eating clams just isn’t right,” I said, and she snorted.

“Sorry,” she said. “My mind went to a different place.” It took me a second to realize exactly where her mind had gone.

“Grow up,” I said, chucking a shrimp at her.

“Can’t. My brain bought real estate in the gutter. I have a lovely little home there,” she said, slurping up the clam. Fuck, now my mind had joined hers. Tenley’s mouth glistened with the butter and I had to go back to my shrimp. Thinking about Tenley’s mouth and what she could do with it was off-limits for the rest of the night.

* * *

This was not Tenley’s first lobster rodeo as I watched her get every last bit of meat out of hers without even getting anything on her clothes. She didn’t even wear a bib. I’d put mine on, even if it looked silly. I’d rather protect my clothes.

“Have you ever read Lexi Starr?” she asked when we inevitably started talking about books.

“No, what kind of stuff does she write?” I asked.

“I was just wondering,” she said, digging around in her lobster claw to see if there was anything left.

“She writes sapphic books, so I thought you might have in book club or something,” she mumbled.

I hadn’t heard the name, but now I was curious. I committed the name to memory and made a note to look it up later.

“I read all kinds of books,” I said. “You don’t have to be queer to like a queer romance.”

“I know,” she said, her tone defensive. “I’ll read pretty much anything. With the exception of books that say they’re romances and then kill one of the main characters. What the hell is that?”

I started to respond, but Tenley was off on one of her rants and I went ahead and just let her go. It was fucking cute. I had flipped back over to her being attractive again. Dammit.

She managed to speak and finish her lobster and didn’t pause stop to eat her corn. Tenley simply used a knife to scrape the kernels off the cob.