Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh In The Rough

Chris glanced at her pointedly as he flattened the now empty bag, setting it off to one side. He had put out the boxes, as well as the chopsticks and napkins that had come with the order. He also laid out the two sets of plastic cutlery he had specifically requested. He had no idea if Suzie knew how to use chopsticks, and he’d come prepared.

“If you recall, I did mention dinner today,” he reminded her.

“And if you recall, I mentioned the word no,” she countered with a defiant note.

Chris shrugged, unfazed. He dragged over a chair from another workstation.

“I just figured that was before you got hungry.” He noticed that she still wasn’t making a move to open any of the containers. “It’s here. You might as well have some,” he coaxed, opening a container close to him. She still made no move toward the food. “Were you always this stubborn?” he asked. “Or is it just me who sets you off?”

Suzie sighed. She supposed he was right. The food was here and it wasn’t as if she was making some sort of a commitment if she actually ate some of it.

Erasing the unfriendly expression from her face, she peeled back the paper wrapping from a set of chopsticks, separated the two pieces and deftly clasped them in her fingers. “Thank you,” she murmured almost grudgingly.

Glancing up at her, Chris stopped eating for a moment, saying, “I’m impressed.”

Despite her best efforts, Suzie could feel her back going up. “Because I thanked you?” she asked, ready to tell him to take his butt off the stool and make himself scarce.

“No,” he replied easily, defusing her instant reaction, “because you can use chopsticks. I’m not any good at it.”

She would be the last to flatter him—nor did he need to have his ego bolstered—but what he was saying was absurd.

“It’s not like playing a cello,” she told him. “You just take the two pieces like so...” She demonstrated. “Then you pick up the food and bring it to your mouth, like so.” She proceeded to go through the motions, slowly and elaborately.

When she was finished, Chris attempted to mimic her actions. But he wound up failing miserably, actually sending one chopstick flying.

Unable to help herself, Suzie started to laugh at what was at best a very sad display of artlessness and ineptitude.

Rather than take offense, he appeared pleased. “So you actually can laugh,” he observed.

She had to say it. “At particularly hapless displays of ineptitude? Yes,” she allowed. “I can.”

“Well,” he said philosophically, “I’m always happy to please a lovely lady.”

The laughter faded and Suzie became serious again. “Don’t do that,” she told him.

“Don’t do what? Call you lovely?” Chris asked innocently.

That went without saying. She didn’t like hearing empty words of flattery, but she knew it was also pointless to tell him that. He wouldn’t listen.

“No, don’t keep trying to hit on me.” Suzie paused to consider her words. He wasn’t going to listen to that, either. “Although I guess that’s kind of like telling you not to breathe.”

Chris just smiled warmly at her. Was he humoring her or agreeing with her? She couldn’t tell.

“We can consider the possibilities while we eat,” he told her, the same warm, inviting smile on his lips.

Suzie shook her head in disbelief. She had to laugh again. When he looked at her, an unspoken question in his eyes, she explained, “You’re like that blow-up clown doll, aren’t you? The one that no matter how many times you punch it just bounces back up again—right in your face.”

“Well, that’s a new one,” he said, rolling the image over in his mind. “Never been compared to a blow-up clown doll before.”

Suzie had no idea why, but she suddenly felt bad. O’Bannon had, after all, brought her dinner even after she’d been less than friendly toward him, all but telling him to get lost.

She relented. “That wasn’t exactly meant as an insult,” she murmured.

And then there was the grin again, the one that belonged to the happy-go-lucky, lighthearted boy he had to have been. The one, for all she knew, he still was.

“I know,” he told her with a conspiratorial wink.

That pulled her up short. Either they were on some kind of a wavelength she was totally unaware of, or he had one hell of an ego.

“You know?”

“Why don’t we stop dancing around like this, Suzie Q, and eat before it gets cold?” he suggested, pulling a carton closer to him. He opened it up. “Although I have to admit I do like Chinese food cold.” He raised his eyes to hers, creating, just like that, an intimate air. “For breakfast the next day.”

Suzie pressed her lips together in annoyance, waiting for some sort of innuendo or maybe even a graphic scenario to follow. But there was none. There was just Chris, grappling with his chopsticks as he tried to bring at least a few strands of lo mein to his mouth.

He failed, but tried again. And again, valiantly trying to conquer the two slender pieces of polished wood and make them do his bidding.

Unable to stand it any longer, Suzie put down her own chopsticks, then picked up his and carefully positioned them in his hand.

When the result was less than successful, she tried another approach.

This time, she placed the chopsticks in his fingers and wrapped her hand around his, carefully guiding it to the contents in the container.

After three attempts, Chris, with her help, managed to secure a single morsel of shrimp. When, with her hand still around his, he brought the piece to his lips, Suzie experienced a feeling of triumph that somehow, in the next moment, seemed to transform into a completely different emotion.

She felt a warmth traveling through her limbs and torso, and even felt, heaven help her, a momentary shortness of breath that had nothing to do any condition that might have sent her hurrying to the ER, and everything to do with the man she was attempting to instruct.

Suzie pulled her hand away as if she had just come in contact with a hot frying pan filled with boiling oil.

“I think you have the hang of it,” she said crisply, doing what she could to distance herself from the moment—and from the man.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chris confessed. “But it certainly isn’t for lack of you trying. You know,” he told her with a laugh, “I think I might have discovered a brand-new kind of diet. We could call it the chopstick diet. Dexterity-challenged people like me eat all their meals using chopsticks. The pounds’ll start dropping off from day one,” he enthused. “And people won’t have to invest in some big initial layout of cash. All they have to buy is a pair of chopsticks and then try to eat what they normally eat.” He smiled broadly at her. “I can smell the success from here.”

Suzie shook her head. He was actually laughing at himself. He really was one of a kind, she thought. She pushed the plastic fork toward him.

“Eat,” she told him. “You don’t need to lose any weight. You’re fine the way you are.”

Chris put his hand over his chest, feigning surprise. “Why, Suzie Q, is that a compliment?”

“That,” she informed him, “was a slip of the tongue. Now eat,” she ordered. “These containers can’t stay here while I do my work, so once I finish eating, they’re going to have to be cleared away.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, nodding. “I consider myself warned.”

As she watched, he picked up the chopsticks again. “Use the fork,” she told him.

If he continued to eat using the chopsticks, he would be here half the night, and despite what she’d just said, she couldn’t very well toss him out, not after he’d sprung for dinner the way he had—never mind that she hadn’t asked him to.