If We Were Perfect - Ana Huang Page 0,28
her charity work, wedding planning, and flying back and forth to various exotic locations to visit her movie star fiancé on set. Courtney was single and ready to mingle, but she also lived out of town, in Seattle.
None of Olivia’s grad school friends had stayed in the city either, choosing instead to take their summer internships in New York or London. The classmates who were in San Francisco, she didn’t care for.
She sighed and scrolled aimlessly through Community, where people could form groups and post meetup opportunities for others with similar interests in their city. Knitting, birdwatching, photography, dodgeball...
Olivia stopped on a black-and-white profile photo of a shirtless man lying on a bed with his head thrown back in ecstasy. EROTICA BOOK CLUB, the bold black letters next to the photo proclaimed.
Interesting...
Olivia had read her fair share of high-brow literature and popular fiction—Proust, Austen, Dostoyevsky, Toni Morrison, Dan Brown, Stephen King. She was familiar with all of them. But she had a particular weakness for erotic fiction. It was the perfect escape from the sometimes mundane nature of reality, and who didn’t like hot, sexy times? Besides, the books contained excellent ideas for spicing things up in the bedroom.
Given the social stigma against the erotica genre, Olivia didn’t flaunt her reading preferences, but she didn’t hide them either. Her friends understood but didn’t share her tastes, and it would be nice to find some like-minded readers she could connect with.
Olivia scrolled down and read the description.
Not your average book club! This is a group for people who enjoy reading and discussing sexy, smutty books. Each month we will choose an erotic romance or erotic thriller book to read and discuss. Join us for book discussions, drink specials, and raunchy jokes (because all “work” and no play makes Jill a very dull girl). We meet on the first Tuesday of every month at The Catalina Restaurant & Bar, 7pm. Hope to see you there!
It sounded promising. Too bad it only met once a month—Olivia could only attend two meetings before classes started again, but what the hell. She’d take fun where she could find it.
She’d just finished adding the next book club meeting to her Google calendar when the sound of a car door slamming caused her to look up. A minute later, Sammy strolled in, looking devastating in a black T-shirt and jeans. Surprise flickered over his face when he saw Olivia and the spread on the dining table.
Her nerves jumped into overdrive. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He flashed a quizzical smile. “You must be hungry.” A faint tinge of amusement colored his voice.
Okay, she may have gone a little overboard with the Thai takeout. The still-closed containers took up almost the entire table.
“It’s not for me,” Olivia said. “It’s for you. Well, for us. It’s an apology dinner.”
Sammy’s smile faded. “Dinner.”
“Yes.”
“With you.”
An inexplicable stab of hurt pierced her chest. “I was trying to be nice. You were right—I shouldn’t have rearranged everything without asking you first yesterday—but if you don’t want to eat with me or you already ate, that’s fine.” She busied herself with opening a container of chicken pad Thai.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
She felt rather than saw Sammy walk up to the table. The faint scent of sandalwood mingled with the delicious aromas wafting from the open takeout boxes.
“I’m surprised, that’s all. You’ve never wanted to eat dinner with me.” Sammy reached into one of the large brown paper bags and took out plastic utensils and napkins. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were scared of me.”
“Ha!” Olivia snorted, overcoming her earlier nerves. “As if.”
Despite her bravado, he wasn’t entirely wrong. She was scared of being around him—he brought out too many emotions she thought she’d quashed. But they were roommates now, so she needed to get over it.
They worked in silence, setting the table and unpacking the food until Olivia’s mouth watered from the smells. Her greedy gaze skimmed over the spread as she tried to decide what to dig into first. The classic pad Thai or the creamy green curry? The eggplant Thai basil or the duck with honey plum and ginger sauce?
She settled for the pad Thai. Whenever she tried a new Thai place, she always ordered the pad Thai first. If they couldn’t get such a classic dish right, then chances were their other items weren’t great, either.
Olivia and Sammy sat on opposite sides of the dining table, eyeing each other warily. The clock ticked on the wall, loud and insistent, as