My breath catches in my lungs for a moment, but I recover quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. It's stupid, but...” He shrugs.
My whole body warms as I smile.
“Want to go for a ride?” he asks.
I frown, not understanding.
“Motorcycle.”
It's December and there is no way I'm getting on the back of motorcycle without a helmet with the head of a rival crime lord. That has bad idea written all over it.
“I'll make you a deal, Bond. When you get two helmets, I'll ride with you.”
He smiles. “Deal. So, I did intend to bring you to my favor
ite diner, but...”
“But we would need to travel there by bike,” I finish for him.
He taps his nose with his finger. “I do know of a great New York pizza place.”
I smile. “If you're buying, I'm in.”
The pizzeria is exactly where I expect a teenager to hang out, not a mobster. Still, some of my favorite first dates had been in places just like this. “Is there anything you don't like?” he asks me.
I shake my head. When you have a job like mine, you learn to like a wide variety of foods and activities that you never thought you would.
That seems to make him happy. “One with everything on it,” he says, then grabs a soda from the counter. We head to a booth.
There's not even an ingredient list on the wall, so it's a real mystery to me what we're getting. “What all is 'everything'?” I ask.
Dante smiles and shakes his head. “You'll see.” I can tell he's enjoying my apprehension.
I decide to test him out. I want to know how he's going to react tomorrow when we officially meet. “Do you like surprises, Bond?”
He looks away from me. “Yeah, sure. I mean nothing really surprises me that much.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Tough Guy. I'm sure you just expected to talk me into sleeping with you the other night.”
He smiles, looks away again, and shrugs. It's the perfect level of cockiness and just manages to turn me on even more. I slap his arm and he leans over and kisses me. A few moments later I laugh as I realize I'm making out in a pizzeria like a teenager again. If nothing else, Bond will keep me young.
We keep kissing until the guy at the counter calls Dante's name. He jumps out of the booth and grabs the pizza, setting it down in front of me. It's a steaming mess of what seems like a thousand different ingredients.
If nothing else, he's definitely a sadist, I think to myself as I look at the melange of difference meats and vegetables on the pie in front of me. So when I grab a slice out and bite into it, I'm not surprised that his eyes look at me like I did the exact opposite of what he expected.
The taste isn't the worst I've ever had. At least it's all-American. However, I probably won't be able to finish the whole slice. Still, I chew it up and swallow. “Surprised, Bond?” I ask with a smile.
He smiles back. “I do like some surprises,” he says. He digs into the pizza, obviously not one to be outdone. We smile back and forth as we eat, just making small talk. I suspect that we both know that neither one of us is telling the whole truth.
As we walk back to my apartment, we go slow. He puts his jacket on me which warms me against the cold December air. I enjoy his arm around me, and he feels strong underneath me. Still, I can tell what he's going to be angling for already, and I'm not entirely sure if I want that or not.
When we get to the door of my apartment, we both step inside the outer door. “So...” he starts.
“So.”
There's a pause, then he smiles and laughs. “Are you going to invite me up?”