After a moment, I realize it’s hot as hell in here, so I peel off the staid, respectable cardigan I wore to the office over a slightly-less-staid but certainly still-respectable sleeveless black dress. Now I feel oddly overexposed, but I remind myself that it’s a bar, for karaoke, and wearing a dress that shows five percent more of my shoulders than usual isn’t a big deal.
They’re still talking songs and I’m still fighting nerves when Evan walks in.
He’s late, of course, not that timeliness really matters. He must have gone home to change because he’s not wearing the polo shirt and khakis he had on at the office, but a v-neck t-shirt that’s tight around the arms and a pair of jeans that fit him pretty well.
Evan looks good. Evan usually looks good, and I hate it. I hate that it’s true and I hate that I think it, because now that I’ve seen his inner self, shouldn’t his outer self also be ugly? At the very least, shouldn’t I not find him attractive any more?
But Evan’s still attractive, even if I’d rather walk ankle-deep through a literal snake pit than touch him.
I’m still glaring at him when an arm slides around my shoulders, and I jump. A thumb strokes my bare shoulder, like it’s calming a nervous cat.
I take another sip of my drink and snort at my pun, because what am I if not a nervous Kat?
“—really nothing but enthusiastic shouting,” Silas is saying, the two of them still poring over this karaoke book. “But you’d have to know all the words, I think it’s too fast for the teleprompter to be much help.”
I make myself relax, and after a moment, it feels almost normal, even if I still suspect there’s a neon sign over my head that says THIS IS A FARCE.
They decide on a song for Melissa to sing while I’m half-listening and half-glaring at Evan from across the room, trying to hide behind a gin and tonic. She gets up and walks away, looking pleased with her choice, leaving the karaoke book open on our table.
“I think she may have been drinking,” he says, his words easy and his smile easier as he settles back, looking at me. “Took her a while to decide.”
“I think you might be right,” I say. After a moment’s hesitation I settle back, too, his arm still over my shoulders. He’s still in the clothes he wore to work, the top button of his shirt unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his forearm bare against my upper back. I swear I can feel every ridge in his fingerprint as he thoughtlessly moves his thumb over my skin, and I want to… not.
“What is that, a pint of vodka?”
He laughs and takes another sip.
“I’m pacing myself.”
“After one beer?”
“You counting my drinks?” he asks, and he’s smiling but there’s an edge to his voice. I clear my throat and push my glasses up. If I weren’t already tomato-colored thanks to the alcohol, I’d be blushing.
“Sorry, that was shitty,” I say. “I swear I know better than to harass people for not drinking.”
He takes another drink, the muscles in his throat working below the faintest five-o-clock shadow, his stubble ruddy and auburn, a few shades lighter than his hair. Or maybe it’s my imagination.
“I could forgive you for being surprised,” he admits, and I squint at him through glasses. He grins.
“You think my surprise merits forgiveness?” I ask. I’m teasing and definitely not too far gone for it to become something else. “Like, all-the-way, Jesus-sanctioned, tell-a-priest-in-a-confessional forgiveness? Because I don’t think it was that bad.”
He’s laughing now, which is good, because I was teasing.
“I could understand your surprise, then, given our last set of interactions,” he amends himself, and I nod once. We lapse back into silence for a few minutes, sitting together on a cushioned bench seat along one wall of the bar. A group of three programmers on stage finishes out Sexy Back, steps down, and another one steps up and starts belting out Old Town Road.
Evan’s across the room from us. He’s practically holding court, already Mister Popular, casually talking to all the guys who work in the office and the women they brought along, not to mention Melissa and Isabelle, the other two female employees at Stratifite.
That’s what makes something dark and familiar twist in my gut: the sight of him smiling at them, flattering two nerdy programmers whose work attire consists of hoodies, flip flops, and graphic t-shirts with Doctor Who references, who’ve probably played through Skyrim more times than they’ve been kissed, who had braces for way too long and coke-bottle glasses and who always got picked last for dodgeball, even though they weren’t that bad at it.
I take another sip of my gin and tonic and acknowledge that I may be projecting. A little.
Silas’s hand tightens on my shoulder, and I feel him lean in. My skin prickles.
“Don’t look at him,” he says, even closer than I realized, and goosebumps explode on my neck. “Look at me.”
I do, and his easy smile is right there, so close it’s unnerving. Even in the half-dark of a bar I can see his almost-freckles, an archipelago on his skin.
And God, his eyes.