Isabel Sharpe - Some Like It Hotter

He let the way to Mamoun’s Falafel on MacDougal Street, a staggeringly popular place with minimal seating where he’d regularly stopped for late-night eats when he was a student at NYU. They bought falafel sandwiches with hummus and took them to eat on a bench in the park facing the small replica of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe.

“Oh, m’gah.” Eva spoke through a bite of falafel. “These are ’mazing!”

“Uh-huh.” He couldn’t think of another woman he knew who could talk with her mouth full and be somehow adorable.

“This whole walk has been so much fun.”

“For me, too.”

“Oh, good!” She turned and grinned at him. “So you’ll ask me out again.”

“What do you mean again?” He pretended to be mystified. “I didn’t ask you out this time. You asked me.”

“Hmm, yeah, good point.” She looked perplexed for a second, then her expressive face cleared. “You can easily fix that by asking me out the first time and then again after that.”

He snorted, getting used to her sense of humor. Enjoying it, in fact. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

They finished their sandwiches, commenting on the scenery, discussing more of the Village streets she should explore on her next trip. A pair of NYU students passed them, backpacks on their shoulders, in earnest discussion. After them, a gay couple walking a terrier of some kind.

“The energy here is really different from farther uptown.” Eva crumpled her sandwich paper.

“Yeah?” He refrained from rolling his eyes. The energy? This was New York, there was nothing but energy here. Who cared what kind it was?

“Funkier. Younger. More alternative. More like California.”

He bristled, as any good New Yorker would. “Eva?”

“Mmm?” She was watching a black-clad teenage couple making out. He liked the way her hummingbird clung intimately to the smooth skin of her neck.

“Let me tell you something if you want to survive your time here. Other places are like New York. New York is not like other places. Especially California.”

Eva turned to him, both eyebrows raised. He held her gaze, controlling any hint of a smile.

“Well, then. Only one thing to do.” She leaned up and kissed him full on the mouth.

His body froze. Her lips were soft and lingered longer than a brief peck, but not much.

Then she sat back, took the last bite of her sandwich and crumpled the paper while he sat there like a dork loser with a half boner. “So what do you want to do now, Ames?”

He stared at her. Who kissed someone for the first time then acted as if it hadn’t happened? How the heck did she keep catching him off balance like this? Just when he thought he’d reclaimed his terrain as Mr. Smooth?

What was he supposed to do now? Mention the kiss? Try to explain that he wasn’t looking for any kind of relationship or romance right now (the phrase with someone like you didn’t need to enter into it)? He’d look like a dork—again—making a big I’m-still-a-virgin deal over an innocent peck. Or not innocent. Didn’t matter.

But if he ignored it, he’d lose an opportunity to set her straight. In the meantime she’d asked him a question.

“Uh. We could... There’s...um... I don’t know what...”

Oh, good one, Ames. He wasn’t like this with women. Ever.

Eva sprang to her feet and held out her hand. “Let’s find a place to have dessert. Or a beer. Or in your case, wine. How’s that?”

He was surprised to find the idea appealing. “Okay, but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“No more kissing.”

She looked astonished. “Why not?”

“Because...we’re not the kissing... We aren’t...” He broke off in utter frustration. “We’re not supposed to be doing that.”

Oh, God.

Dork!

“Ah.” She put her hands to her hips and stared down at him as if he had four heads. “I see. You are morally outraged.”

“ No, no, I’m not.

“You didn’t like kissing me?”

“ No, that’s not it. I mean...” He wanted to drop his head into his hands.

“Then...?”

Ames stood abruptly. “Let’s get a drink. For God’s sake.”

“What a great idea. Wish I’d thought of it.” She took his hand and swung it as they walked.

He was too grouchy to spar with her further. Her hand felt soft and warm and good in his. It had been a long time since he’d strolled holding hands with a woman. His last girlfriend, Taylor, had objected to walking that way, said it made her feel as though she was his daughter. That was strange, but whatever. Everyone had something that bugged them. Before Taylor he’d dated Patricia, who wouldn’t go out on days she’d had her nails done. Before Patricia there’d been Ashley, who was so tenderhearted she couldn’t handle movies with any violence. Nice women, all of them. Intelligent, beautiful, cultured, great company, but something had been missing every time. And then he’d seen Chris, and his instinct had kicked in so strongly.

“Are we going to walk to this place?” Eva asked.

Ames ended his reverie. No point thinking about something that was never going to happen. “We can or take a taxi. It’s several blocks.”

“Oh, walk, absolutely walk. I want to see everything.”

“Fine by me.” He had a new attitude about her boots. Too many women he dated wore heels so high they could barely make it to the end of a block without complaining.

“How long have you lived in the city?” She danced away from him, looking up, turned in a circle, then danced back, not taking his hand again.

“Since I was eighteen and came here to college at NYU from Jersey.”

“Joisey, right. I’m from central Wisconsin, a town just north of Madison. Dad’s a coffee scientist. Mom is an accountant. Does your mom work?”

“She helps Dad with the store. Bookkeeping, mostly.” He turned up University Place, heading for Union Square, then Eighteenth Street and one of his brother’s favorite bars, Old Town. There were a couple of fabulous wine bars in the area, customers of his, but he wasn’t sure they could handle shiny lime-green boots.

Actually...this was New York. They could handle anything. The real question was whether Ames could handle them.

No, not really.

“Brothers? Sisters? Occupations?”

He sent her a look. “Are you going to keep this interrogation up all night?”

“Conversation, Ames, remember?”

“One brother. Mike. A schoolteacher.”

“Ah, so you, the favored son, carried on the family tradition.”

“I was always interested in wine. Worked at the store from age sixteen, read everything about it I could get my hands on.”

“Drank everything you could get your hands on, too?”

“Tasted, then spat.” He snorted. “If I drank every kind of wine I learned about, I’d be in serious trouble.”

“How did you get started at Boyce Wines?”

“Dad used them for years at his store, insisted they were the best. He had a lot of respect for them and their business practices. So I applied, got a job, blah, blah, blah.”

“Do you get to travel to vineyards? Hey, you can visit me in California!”

He wasn’t going to touch that. “Boyce doesn’t sell California wine. Just Italy and France.”

“Then next time you go, I would be happy to come with you. Seriously.”

He shot her a look. “Do I get to ask you questions now?”

“Wait. Wait.” She dragged him out of the flow of pedestrians toward the street and pointed back at a building entrance they’d just passed. “Look at that!”

“What?” He saw a black awning with bowling pins on it. That couldn’t be what had her so excited.