Page 50 of Not How I Saw That Going

“You still owe me ten things,” I say, tilting my chin up at him and feeling oddly content after our disastrous nondate.

He scratches the stubble on his chin that I assume wasn’t there this morning. I wonder what he would look like with a full beard.

“I do, don’t I?”

I take a step inside, and for the first time in over five years, invite a man into my space. Technically, Crew invited him in the first time while I was sleeping. This time I am very much in control of my faculties. “Want a drink?”

He hesitates just outside the door, then follows me inside. “Water is good,” he says, sitting at my two-person dining table. Crew has already dumped his entire box of Legos on the living room floor, the one I finished cleaning up this morning. Guess I’ll be stepping on them in the middle of the night again.

I grab two cups and join Ward at my kitchen table. Yesterday it was a normal size; today it looks minuscule with him seated at it.

I take a breath. There’s a man in my apartment. A handsome man who is not here to resuscitate me this time. I might not oppose him trying… do they still do mouth-to-mouth?

My face burns with my incriminating thoughts.

“So…” Ward takes a long sip of water. His Adam’s apple bobs and I…where’s my drink?

“What do you want to know?”

I bite my bottom lip. “What do you want to tell me?” Am I flirting right now?

He leans back, crossing his broad arms across his chest, and I do the same. “Let’s see. I have one sister, the soccer coach. I have two nieces, and hopefully soon, a nephew. I served in the military for six years before I came back home to work at the fire station.”

“So you’re from here?”

He frowns. “Born and raised.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. “No. It’s just, I never thought I’d stay…” He clears his throat and attempts a smile. It doesn’t stick. “My family can be a bit much.”

“Now there’s something I can understand,” I say, but don’t ask any follow-up questions. If I ask about his family, he will ask about mine, or rather, my lack thereof. That subject is much too deep for a non-date. “What else?”

He plays with a piece of Formica fraying off the edge of my table. “When I was little, I was convinced I wanted to be an astronaut until I realized I’m claustrophobic.”

“Yet you came in here?”

His gaze drifts around the tiny room and so does mine. Phew, it’s mostly clean, except for the Legos.

He shrugs, “I’ve gotten a little better. The military helped with that. And your apartment’s not that small.”

“Now I know you’re a liar,” I tease.

He scratches at the tattoo on his chest. I want to ask him more about his family and his time in the military, but that sounds like a safer third-date option.

Third date? Would I give this guy a third date? My heart is saying yes, but every other reasonable part of my body is telling me to give him the boot before he can kick me with it.

The hopeless girl inside of me is begging me to hold onto this guy. Maybe because he’s the only guy in the last five years who’s given me attention of any kind, even if he can be a bit rough around the edges. I know he has a good heart. I can see it with his nieces, with Crew. I just need to break down his walls a little. Or a lot.

“What’s your biggest fear?”

He freezes and I immediately want to retract my question. I can’t take a jackhammer to his walls when he’s only barely cracked a window for me.

I blink repeatedly. “Sorry. Um, what’s your favorite color?”

Seriously? That’s so lame.

“Green.” He gives me a false smile, then pats the table. “Well, um, thank you,” he says awkwardly.