My body started to tingle, a weird vibe that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I could feel my senses kick up a notch and that stranger-danger feeling washed over me. Someone was looking at me; I could feel it. I looked up and scanned the dimly-lit bar, trying to figure out what my senses were trying to tell me.
I already know, but refuse to believe it until I can verify it with my own eyes. And then it happened. I saw him. He was sitting at a table with his brother. Ian was here, and he had seen me. No, seen isn’t the word. His eyes were on me as if I were his prey. It sent a delicious shiver over my body as I watched him greedily stare at me.
I grabbed Maria’s arm. “He’s here,” I hissed.
She only smiled. It was a devilish smile.
“You knew?” I asked in horror. “Maria, you can’t do that. Wait, how did you know he would be here?”
She refused to answer but gave me a quick wink and a smile before she grabbed my hand and led me through the bar and towards Ian. This couldn’t be happening.
Ian was still staring, but occasionally looking away to stare at his brother.
Maria kept pulling my hand until we reached an empty table that happened to be next to Ian’s. I looked at Maria, my mouth dropping open in shock. Did Maria set this up?
She cleared her throat, looked at me expectantly and I suddenly remembered my manners.
“Oh, uh, Maria, this is Ian, I mean Professor Dunlap. Professor, Maria,” I said, feeling like a complete id
iot. Why was I introducing them? We could have sat down and ignored them. Well, I could have tried, but there was no way I could ignore the man. He was all-consuming.
Maria was beaming. “I know, and this is Jake. Jake, this is my roommate, Tessa,” she said, before leaning in and kissing the man.
Ian and I both stared at the two, our mouths agape.
When she looked back at me, I knew I had been bamboozled.
“This is who you’ve been seeing?” I asked in a high-pitched voice.
Maria laughed. “Yep.”
Ian was staring at Jake. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me you were seeing anybody,” he said, with a hint of irritation in his voice. “If you had a date tonight, you could have told me.”
Jake shrugged his shoulders. “We thought it would be fun if each of us met the most important people in our lives. It’s part of dating, you know. I meet her friends; she meets mine,” he explained as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I looked at Maria, questioning her with my eyes. Had she told Jake about the kiss? I would have to mind my tongue from now on. She had been compromised. I knew how people in relationships were. They told each other everything.
I looked over at Ian, and he looked like he wanted to run out of the bar. I offered a smile. “Sorry,” I mouthed.
“Have a seat, ladies,” Jake said. “We ordered appetizers. What will you have to drink?”
I didn’t think I could drink, let alone eat. The tension between the group was palpable. Or at least I know I could feel it like a heavy blanket around me anyway. Maria and Jake didn’t seem to mind a bit. Jake grabbed the table I was at and pulled it over and butted it up against the one he and Ian were sharing. It left me sitting there in the middle of the patio. My only option was to scoot over, which would put me directly beside Ian.
I could see the horror on his face and realized this was as bad for him as it was for me.
“Come on, scooch in,” Maria said, grinning ear to ear. “I don’t think the professor bites. Does he?”
I wanted to die. Right then and there. She had to have told Jake, based on his reaction to what she said. For his part, Ian was shooting death glares at his brother. I looked from one brother to the other, and my money was on Ian. He was older, bigger and royally pissed.
“It’s okay,” he said, in a low voice, looking at me.
I nodded and carefully moved my chair next to his. We sat next to each other all the time. This is no big deal, I reminded myself.
The waitress appeared, dropping off a variety of appetizers and taking our drink order with the promise to return in a jiffy. Maria and Jake had their heads together, talking and kissing on occasion. They were in their own world.
“Nothing like a blind date to make your day complete, huh?” I joked, knowing how much he had hated the one on Sunday at the barbecue.
Like that, the tension flowed away. Ian’s shoulders went back a little, and he smiled before taking a long drink of his beer.