“Oh my God, Mickey, that’s great,” I breathed, reaching past our chowder cups to grab his hand on the table.
He turned it and wrapped his fingers around mine, holding tight. “It would be, I can pull it off,” he agreed.
“Are you a shoo-in for the chief’s job?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he answered.
“And when is the chief retiring?”
“Not sure he can make it the two years he’d planned before retiring. Bobby’s not just done with all the work; he’s done with Maine in the winter. Could talk to him but I think he wants to get the department where he wants it and feels good to go and then he’ll go.”
“Then, could you start now?” I queried. “The roofing,” I explained. “Not a big company, quitting your job to begin, but, I don’t know, taking smaller jobs? Just so when you can really do it, you hit the ground running.”
We had to separate as the busboy came and took our spent dishes and we did this with Mickey studying me and not speaking.
“Sorry,” I mumbled after the busboy left, thinking I read his silence. “I don’t know anything about this kind of thing.”
“It’s a good idea, Amy,” he surprised me by saying. “Don’t have a compete clause with Ralph in my contract. Could get the word out, do patch work, open a line in case of emergencies, talk to some of the boys who want to take side work, start forming a crew. Build it from there while I still got a full salary.”
“Will Ralph get angry?” I asked.
“He does, he does,” Mickey answered on a slight shrug. “He’s got no call with the work I’m hired to do for him to fire me and he’s not stupid. He knows I eat shit a lot and talk fast for him; he won’t want that buffer taken away. But he gets rid of me, then I just go for it.”
I smiled big.
Mickey smiled big back to me.
That also settled inside me in another way that felt good.
I lost that feeling too fast for my liking when our waitress came with our lobster.
I stared at mine, the whole thing, and I did this trying to hide my horror.
I’d had lobster. I loved lobster.
But I’d never had to take one apart to eat it.
I was still staring at it when Mickey’s hand curled around it.
I looked up at him to see him looking down at my lobster, shaking his head and grinning, then twisting my lobster apart expertly, doing this muttering, “My dainty heiress, doesn’t wanna get her hands dirty.”
He was teasing. He was his normal handsome (and then some) teasing.
But he was also annoying.
“I’ve never torn apart a lobster, Mickey. If you’d just explain how to do it, I could do it myself,” I declared as he put the tail on my plate.
I declared this even though I very much wanted to eat my lobster but I very much did not want to twist it apart.
His eyes came to me, dipped to my cleavage and came back, “And have lobster juice squirt on that dress? No way, baby.”
I liked that he liked the dress.
I liked that he was taking care of me by tearing apart my meal.
I did not like that he called me a “dainty heiress.”
Though, truth be told, I did like that he called me his “dainty heiress.”
“I’m not a dainty heiress, Mickey,” I snapped.
He dumped the claws on my plate and then he dumped the gross part on another plate the waitress had given us for that purpose, doing that as his gaze came to me.
“You drive a Mercedes. You live in Cliff Blue. You go grocery shopping and come over for a family dinner in high heels. You so are, Amy,” he replied.
“I’ll have you know I do all my own laundry, cooking and cleaning,” I announced.
He picked up his own lobster, eyes still on me and they were dancing. “All of it? Wow, baby, impressive.”
I glared at him even as something warm stole through me.
He was teasing and he was doing it in a way he’d get a rise out of me because he liked to get a rise out of me and I knew why.
Even in getting along, he wanted me to have, as he put it, my “gloves up,” because he liked sparring with me, mostly because between us that was a spark that we had that when he fanned the flame with a kiss (or, eventually more), it blazed into an inferno.
That knowledge tingled someplace private, a sensation I enjoyed. A sensation I would have liked to experience a lot longer.
But I didn’t.
Because suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Shockingly, the instant they did, I watched Mickey tense. I also watched his head turn.
I followed his gaze and that was when I tensed.
Because being guided to a table across the restaurant were Martine and Conrad. They were moving but both had their heads turned, looking at Mickey and me.
Conrad appeared annoyed. Then again, for the last three years, that was always the way he looked at me.
Martine looked annoyed too.
Her eyes darting between Mickey and me, she looked something else as well.
Catty.
And if I could credit it, there was a hint of envy.
And there was a lot to be envious about.
She had Conrad, who was a cheat in a way he was probably still cheating, but this time, on her.
And I was sitting with Mickey, who was much more handsome, nicer, funnier and a whole lot better of a kisser.
Not to mention, my dress was far more stylish than her skirt and blouse and my shoes kicked her shoes’ ass.
The hairs on my neck eased.
“Fuck,” Mickey grunted.
“Honey,” I called and Mickey looked to me. “Thanks for ripping apart my meal.”
It was my way of saying this was him and me, our first date, our time, and Conrad and Martine were not going to ruin it.
He studied me before his eyes warmed and his face grew soft and when they did, I knew he heard me.
“Anytime, Amy.”
I grinned.
Then I looked down and picked up my cracker to dig into my lobster claws.
* * * * *
I was stuffed by the time we were done, and thankful, in an effort to get me eating, Mickey didn’t push dessert because I couldn’t have done it.
But I would have wanted to do it.
For him.
I’d also had three glasses of wine, the meal being delicious, the company better, and I’d found that I’d been anxious all day for nothing.
There were no awkward pauses. There was no searching for conversation. There was no panic about trying to be interesting.
Mickey and I had already laid the groundwork. We knew about each other and each other’s lives. He teased. I reacted. We talked about kids and jobs and family and life and it came easy. There was much to learn but it was being discovered freely and naturally.