Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Eighteen
Kinsey
Kinsey had never seen anything like this place.
Sure, it looked and felt high-end, but “opulent” wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t over-the-top or showy with gold chairs and crystal chandeliers. “Cozy” didn’t fit, either. Despite the comfy booth the maître d’ led them to with its velvet cushions, there was no way she would even think about slipping off her shoes and sitting cross-legged in this place, and it was way too fancy for leggings and her favorite cropped hoodie.
She sat down on one side of the small semicircular booth with Griff on the opposite side. Then the maître d’ left, and she realized that thanks to the curtains around the booth and the way the tables were situated in the dining room, it felt like they were the only people there. The word for this feeling was “intimate”—she just had to remember to stick with her plan. She was helping out her best friend’s brother win a bet.
That was it.
Of course, it would be a lot easier to remember that if her heart didn’t beat faster every time she was in the same room with Griff, let alone sitting right across from him in a booth—one that was so small, her feet kept touching his underneath the white tablecloth.
He was still in the suit he’d been wearing this morning, but his tie was gone, and he’d unbuttoned the top buttons of his white shirt, revealing just enough of his corded throat and the hint of his chest tattoo that her mouth had gone dry. At least he was still wearing the suit jacket. That meant he couldn’t roll up his shirtsleeves, which was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Kinsey wasn’t sure seeing all that arm porn wouldn’t send her over the edge and she was trying to be a good person not someone who lusted after a man she couldn’t have. A curse because now she was zoned in on his strong fingers and couldn’t stop herself from imagining all the things Griff could do to her with those. Her nipples puckered against the smooth satin of her bra at the thought, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself before she did something really embarrassing like say what she was thinking out loud.
Good gravy, girl. You are so much of a mess that Marie Kondo would just love you.
This was what happened when lying about a fake fiancé had led to not dating for the past year. Even at a fake date, she was struck too horny for words. Okay, that wasn’t totally the truth. Not the not-dating part—her social calendar had been free pretty much for the past three eternities. No. She was all hot and bothered about Griff and his square jaw, dimpled cheek, thick thighs, and the look in his blue eyes that said he was solving eighty million problems at once. That mix of brains and brawn was turning out to be her catnip, and all she wanted to do was purr.
Before she could, a man in a winter-white sports coat with a gray shirt and a gold silk tie stopped at their table.
“We’re so glad you’re dining with us this evening. I’m Ganton, your guide for the experience.” He sat a small deck of cards down on the table. “Is this your first time at Montclair’s?”
Kinsey nodded, not trusting her voice at the moment.
“How wonderful,” Ganton said with a wide smile. “These are your conversation starters.” He gestured at the deck on the table. “You don’t have to go through all the cards, but any card you turn over, we encourage guests to discuss. Montclair’s prides itself not just on fine dining but on fine conversation as well.” He paused as if waiting for questions, and when there were none, he gave each of them a serious look. “Do you any questions?”
“No,” Griff said, his tone leaving no doubt that he meant it.
Ganton raised his eyebrows dramatically and put a hand to one side of his mouth as if he was about to whisper a secret, then said in a stage whisper, “He’s a chatty one, isn’t he?”
Kinsey bit back her chuckle. “You have no idea.”
Ganton gave her a dramatic and conspiratorial wink. “Well, let me get your drink order, and then you two can get to your first card!”
They ordered their drinks—a red wine for her and a scotch for him—and their “guide” left, leaving them staring at each other and the deck of cards sitting in the middle of the table.
“Shall we?” Kinsey asked.
Griff fidgeted with the pink stone ring encircling the linen napkin, not looking up at her. “You don’t have to.”
If he was trying to fool her into thinking he didn’t care, he was failing. There was no missing the way he was looking everywhere but at her, how red the tops of his ears had turned, or the way he was sinking lower and lower in his seat. For all of his bluff and bluster, the man was nervous. And in a heartbeat, it was like being in the kitchen with him again doing dishes. She couldn’t leave him in this awkward space where he wasn’t comfortable and—ridiculous bet aside—where he hadn’t asked to go.
You are such a sucker.
“I know I don’t have to, but it seems like fun.” She picked a card up off the top. “Would you rather be able to control animals (but not humans) with your mind or control electronics with your mind?”
Griff’s head snapped up, his eyes connecting with hers and sending a zing of anticipation down her spine. “How is that a question?”
She flipped the card around and showed him. “I’m not making it up.”
He shook his head. “What I mean is that electronics is the only viable answer.”
That was debatable, but she could at least listen to his hypothesis. “Go on.”
“Electronics are everywhere,” he said, scooting closer to her on the circular booth seat, his apparent excitement at the possibilities making the words tumble out. “Imagine if I could control the nuclear system, all the smart systems in people’s homes, or a car’s operating system? I could wreak havoc. Or it could be benign and simply send you a text right now from your fiancé.”
A guilty heat made her body feel flush. “That couldn’t happen.”
“Why not?” he asked.
Well, number one because Todd from Canada wasn’t real. “For reasons I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “And anyway, you’re wrong. Controlling animals would be better.”
“Why?”
She didn’t mean to, but she slid over a bit on the seat; it just seemed like she needed to be closer to Griff to make her point. “Because how much better would it be to use an ant or a fly to spy rather than to have to figure out how to plant devices? You could send out a swarm of bees or a pissed-off hippopotamus after an enemy.”
He let his head fall back and laughed. It was a rusty sound that seemed to creak out of disuse, but it was a laugh, a real one that had him shaking his head. “That’s more evil of you than I expected.”
“Fine,” she said with a dramatic sigh, playing up her Cruella de Vil attitude. “How about the absolute joy of sending out a flock of sparrows and having them form a heart in the sky to cheer up someone you love?”
He took a card off the deck. “Would you rather be covered in fur or covered in scales?”
They both stared at each other.
“Scales,” they both said at the same time.
And so it went. They debated whether it would be better to be ten minutes late for everything or twenty minutes early over the grilled sea scallops appetizer. While they devoured the buttery, seared-to-perfection goodness, they debated whether they’d rather be the first person to explore a planet or be the inventor of a drug that cures a deadly disease. That led into a question about if they’d rather have whatever you are thinking appear above your head for everyone to see or have absolutely everything you do livestreamed for anyone to see.
“If either of those ever happened, I would curl up into a ball and cry,” Griff said.
There was no disagreement on her part.
“Okay, enough of the cards,” she said after the entree of lamb chops and fingerling potatoes with a hint of mint was delivered. “I want something real.”
Griff did his best deer-in-the-headlights impression, his body tense and his jaw clenched.
Oh, this man, he thought everything was a trap, didn’t he?
Okay, so she could easily throw in some deep philosophical questions here, but she didn’t have it in her to pin him down that way. Instead, when her gaze fell to the swath of blue ink peeking out from underneath his shirt cuff, she took pity on him. “How many tattoos do you have?”
He let out what could only be described as a relieved breath as he sliced his lamb chop. “About twenty. You?”
“None.” Needles? No thank you very much. “Are they all science-related?”
“No.”
She cut a bite of potatoes and waited. Griff didn’t add on anything. Not a word. And it wasn’t that he was ignoring her or cutting her out, going by the way his eyes darkened with something that looked a lot like lust. Then he winked at her, and it was so damn sexy that the fingerling potato on her fork fell right off. Okay, that may have had more to do with the fact that she had a near-full-body shiver of awareness roll through her like an avalanche, but that didn’t change that it was one helluva wink.
“So are you gonna tell me about them?” she inquired, because Montclair’s didn’t seem like the kind of place where she could ask him to strip down so she could look herself.
And touch.
And lick.
And—
Good Lord, Kinsey. Pull it together.
Griff shook his head.
She popped her dropped potato into her mouth and waited in hopes he’d change his mind just to fill the silence. No such luck.
“You’re no fun,” she teased.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and went back to eating.
“Why don’t you talk more?” Too direct? Probably, but it was the question she was dying to know the answer to.
He stilled, the fork halfway to his mouth for half a second, then said, “Not a lot to say.”
“Now that’s a lie.” She reached out without thinking and laid her hand on his, the jolt of attraction as soon as she did burning through her. “You, Griff Beckett, are a man of ideas and no one—not even you—can convince me otherwise.”
“You’re an optimist.” He stroked his thumb across hers, looking down at their hands with a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
She nodded, everything inside her feeling a little bubbly and chaotic, as if someone had shaken up a two-liter of Mountain Dew and taken off the cap. “I believe in happily ever afters, in people finding their way, and that we’re stronger together than apart.”
“I like that about you.”
“Oh yeah, what else do you like?”
Meemaw would have given Kinsey the look if she’d been around to hear such blatant compliment fishing, but Griff just grinned at her.
Finally, he looked up at her, an intensity in his gaze that nearly knocked her back against the velvet booth. “Everything.”
Then he let go of her hand and reached for the next card on the deck, and they were back in the world of hypotheticals while she was desperately trying to process that one single word and understand why it had left her absolutely 100 percent hopeful.
By the time the apple crumble and vanilla bean ice cream were served and their guide had taken Griff’s credit card to settle their bill, they’d somehow scooted close enough that they were hip-to-hip in the circular booth. They reached for the last card on the table at the same time, and when his fingers brushed hers, awareness of him—the way he smelled of cedar and old books, the flash of a red swirling design that showed beneath the open V of his unbuttoned collar, the frisson of something more that was just under the surface like an octave that wasn’t audible to the human ear even though a person could feel the sound’s vibration—swept up her arm, leaving her wanting.
Her breath caught.
Griff grumbled something she didn’t catch and pulled his hand back, flexing his fingers. Sure, it had sounded like he’d said her name, a desperate, hungry rumble of consonants and vowels that had her heart beating fast against her ribs, but that interpretation had to be the wine. It couldn’t be reality. This wasn’t a real date. She had a fake fiancé, after all, and Griff had a bet to win.
“What’s it say?” he asked.
Oh yes, there it was, hard reality with its sharp edges here to scrape her up.
Her hand shook as she read the card. “Would you rather be compelled to high-five everyone you meet or compelled to have twenty minutes of small talk with anyone in a blue dress?”
“If it’s you in a blue dress, I’d talk for an hour.”
Kinsey had no idea what to say to that. The words seemed to flow between them—even at brunch the other day—but around others, he was about as chatty as the stump in the middle of Meemaw’s front lawn. And now? All the words in the world disappeared for her. He’d make small talk with her for an hour?
The silence stretched between them, thick with possibilities—or was it that she wanted it to be? Right now, she couldn’t tell.
And just as Griff started to open his mouth, Ganton returned, rubbing his hands together with obvious glee as he set the settled bill and card on the table.
Griff closed his mouth, and Kinsey let out the breath she’d been holding. She couldn’t process what that meant—or more correctly, what she could allow it to mean so she could stick to her how-to-be-successful-in-Harbor-City plan.
“There’s a message for you, sir,” Ganton said.
“Figures it wouldn’t just be dinner,” Griff grumbled as he took the paper and read it. “It’s a dance class.”
She grabbed Griff’s arm, holding on to it to keep her steady as the world got all wobbly. “I’ve got to warn you, I’m about as coordinated as my cousin Amber after she’s done the head-on-the-end-of-a-bat-spin-around thing between innings at a minor league baseball game. She took off for first and ended up in the catcher’s lap. They dated for about a week after that, but it didn’t work out. No shocker. Amber is all about keeping her options open.”
He just stared at her for a second, and then the right side of his mouth curved upward. “I got you.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I’m awful.”
“I had five years of dance classes,” he said. “My mom thought it would help me open up around people. I barely talked at all before that.”
Despite her nerves at the absolute embarrassment she was about to be, she giggled. “Did you just make a joke?”
He didn’t answer, just took her hand in his as they walked out onto the sidewalk and into her worst nightmares.
