lunch went so well yesterday.” I slip back into my chair and skate the mouse across the desk to wake up my computer. I need to finish this paper.
“I thought it did,” Ran says, stone faced.
I twist around in my seat. “Seriously? You thought that went well?”
“Best first date I’ve been on.”
“That wasn’t a first date, Ran. That was a hostage situation.”
“Hardly.” Ran hovers over me. “And I think you owe me a second chance. You know, ‘cause I just gave you one and all.”
I push out a frustrated huff and turn back around to stare at my laptop. Honestly, looking at him right now is so distracting. It’s incredibly difficult to attempt to argue with someone that looks the way Ran does. “So that wasn’t purely merciful earlier? I always knew you had ulterior motives.”
“Ulterior motives, no. A hidden agenda, maybe.” Ran holds his hand up to his face, his fingers curled into his palm like he’s examining his nail bed.
“Again, semantics.” I begin typing on the keyboard, pounding out another paragraph of my essay. I notice the faster I breathe, the quicker and louder my fingers click across the keys, so I force my breathing to slow so my nerves aren’t given away by my impossibly fast typing frenzy.
“Are you a linguistics major, Maggie?”
“No.” I flip open the closest book to a random page and pretend to read the contents. But the words scramble together and their meanings jumble around my head, like the hormones inhabiting it don’t allow for them both to exist in the same space. Like logic and reason don’t belong when it comes to the laws of attraction.
“Then why are you constantly analyzing the way I say things?”
My shoulders pull taut. “I don’t like being lied to.”
“And what makes you think I’m going to lie to you?” I feel him edge closer to me, sense his hands hooking over the back of the chair, and when I smell his minty breath and feel the rush of it on my shoulder, my hairs stand on end.
I shiver. “I don’t know. History.”
“Listen.” Ran pushes off the chair and the momentum causes me to swivel to the right. I plant my foot on the floor to stop from spinning around completely. “People may have lied to you in the past, but I’m not a liar. I’m honest—to a fault.”
“Oh, so you mean that’s just one of the many?”
I glimpse Ran shaking his head over my shoulder. “I’ve already pardoned your past insults. Do you really want to start this again?”
“Kinda.” I shrug.
“I’ll tell you what I want to do,” he says, slinking down onto my bed. I steal a glance from out of the corner of my eye, instantly uneasy from the vision of his body sprawled out on my bed, even though I’d imagined it there already when I led Brian to believe Ran was the one responsible for the tousled sheets and cologne stench. “I want to take a nap.”
“A nap?”
Ran stretches, toes off his black boots so they clatter onto the floor, and splays his arms out behind his head as he eases onto my pillow. He nearly takes up the entire length of the mattress. “I had a late shift last night, and if I’m taking you out tonight, I need my beauty rest. If this truly is our first date, then I want to make a good first impression.”
“Ran, you’ve made lots of impressions already, and none of them have been good,” I say sarcastically. He set himself up for that one.
“That’s not true, Maggie.” Ran closes his eyes. His lashes are so long, so thick and dark. I abuse the privilege of spying on him while he’s not looking and stare a bit too long at his features. “I think my nice face and lips made a pretty good impression if I recall.” With eyes still closed, his mouth bursts into a full-on grin. “And if you’re lucky, these lips just might make another impression. But this time on yours, later tonight.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Wake up.” I poke his shoulder with the tip of my ballpoint pen. He doesn’t flinch; his heavy breathing doesn’t falter. “Wake up.” I poke him again, and still no movement, not even the fluttering of his eyelids. Nothing. It’s like he’s in a coma on my bed and has been for the past three hours.
I was able to finish up a significant portion of my essay, enough that I felt comfortable taking the rest of the evening off