Stuck With You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy

Part 2

Bianca

Mr. Spectacles could not have looked any less receptive to my suggestion that he write down a fake number. He stared at me with not-so-veiled contempt, and, for a few seconds, I thought he was going to call over a waiter and complain that I was harassing him. He must have changed his mind about trying to get me thrown out because he heaved a martyred sigh and asked if I had any paper.

"I don't have anything to write on," I said.

What he did next shocked me a little.

He grabbed my hand, turned it over, and started to write a number on my palm.

That impersonal contact should not have been a problem, but I felt a little zing go up my arm. Mr. Spectacles held my palm flat to the table with his right hand and wrote down a series of numbers with his left. I don't think Mr. Spectacles felt any zinging because he released my hand as if he were dropping a half-decomposed rodent.

"There," he said. "Happy now?"

Not really.

"Thanks," I told Mr. Spectacles. "Sorry to have bothered you."

"If you're so sorry, then maybe you shouldn't have bothered me," he shot back.

His eyelashes were long and feathery. His cheek was covered in a dusting of black stubble. I looked into his brown eyes and wished I had not.

The man hated me.

I felt a flush of anger rising from my toes all the way up to the tips of my ears. What I'd done wasn't that bad, and I'd only done it to save him from Kat's aggressive advances. He should be thanking me, not acting like I'd committed some major breach of social protocol.

"Is it that unacceptable for a woman to ask for a man's phone number?" I shot back. "Men have been asking for women's numbers since the invention of the telephone."

Mr. Spectacles looked suddenly tired.

"I may have over-reacted," he said. "It's just that you remind me of someone I'd rather forget."

"How so?"

"She was a party girl."

I'm not a party girl. Never have been, never will be. That's more Kat's department.

"What makes you think I'm a party girl?"

"You're half drunk."

"I've had one glass of wine," I said, gesturing to the lonely and untouched second glass sitting on the edge of the table where the waiter had placed it when I'd asked to borrow his pen.

As I gestured at the glass, I hit the stem, and it toppled.

Mr. Spectacles tried to right the glass before it spilled but succeeded only in directing the flow of wine down the front of his shirt. He jumped to his feet, and I grabbed a cloth napkin off the table and started dabbing futilely at his chest.

Mr. Spectacles shrank back from my efforts to sop up the wine on his shirt front, and his metal chair went over, clattering on the stone floor of the terrace.

The hum of voices hushed, and I realized that every eye on the terrace was looking at us.

"I'll be going," said Mr. Spectacles. "I find I've lost my appetite."

"When your food arrives," I said, "I'll ask the waiter to put your meal on my bill."

"No need," said Mr. Spectacles. "I'll pay my own bill on the way out."

He was holding his hands extended in front of him, palms out like he thought I was going to physically assault him. Mr. Spectacles retreated across the terrace. He didn't turn his back on me until he'd reached the French doors that led to the interior of the restaurant.