Sing For Me

Chapter Twenty-One: Chasing Cars

If you'd asked me a week ago – hell, if you'd even asked me an hour ago – if drinking coffee under the gleaming, watchful eye of my creepy boss Rob was my idea of a great first date, the answer would have been a definitive no.

But as Tim turns into the seedy parking lot out the back of Rob's Coffee Express, I let out a sigh of relief, and I even begin to feel the tension starting to melt away from my shoulders.

Because everything that had happened to me over the past two days – the hot seat, the paparazzi, Abbey's run-in with the crazy corporate box attendant chick – everything fades into the background when Tim reaches over and squeezes my hand after he puts the car into park.

Grinning, he jumps out of his side and circles around to mine before I have the chance to figure out how I am going to get out of the car without ripping my damned dress.

"My lady," he opens my door and holds out his hand.

I bite down on my lip. Under normal circumstances, I am totally, 100% not into any of that chivalrous bullshit – I swear – but something about this moment makes my stomach fill with butterflies.

"Err, thanks?" I mutter, as Tim helps me down out of the SUV -- though I am fully aware that my cheeks are likely flaming red.

I wince as my expensive heel catches and scrapes on the uneven, potholed tarmac, sending pain shooting up my ankle.

"You okay?" Tim reaches out a hand again, but I decline it.

"Yeah," I nod, waving him off but clinging for dare life to the SUV. "Though, I'll be honest, I was going to pawn these shoes. Every scratch reduces their resale value... I'm pretty sure I just cost myself a weeks' rent." I scrunch my nose.

Tim considers this for a moment. "You know, I think they packed a change of clothes or two in the back," he says.

"Would you mind?" I ask. But Tim is already opening the boot. He grabs a backpack and breaks out some Nike slides that were a couple sizes too big for me, and I shuffle carefully around the car and jump up so I am perched on the edge of the boot.

Tim bends down to help me with my heels, but I bat him away, embarrassed.

"No! Wait, I can do it myself," I say awkwardly.

Of course, in true Meg fashion, I then spend the next thirty seconds flailing as I try to reach down to take off my heels. Turns out I couldn't do it myself -- I was so tightly laced into my dress there was no way I could bend far enough to touch my knees, let alone my toes.

Tim grins and cocks an eyebrow. "You sure about that, Miss Independent?"

I shoot him an evil death glare. "Hey – I'll have you know I pay all my own bills, thank you very much." I huff, 

"But, fine." I say finally, sticking my foot out and crossing my arms over my chest.

Tim doesn't even blink as he lowers himself onto the knee of his ridiculously expensive suit, probably snagging the fabric in the process. I put my foot onto his knee, and he lifts the hem of my dress ever-so-gently, sliding the heel off and placing it delicately in the boot of the SUV beside me.

His fingers are cold. And I am so busy worrying about when the last time was that I'd shaved my legs that I almost don't notice how tenderly he is touching me, how his fingers glide softer than butterflies against my skin. I likely wouldn't have noticed at all, had it not been for the shiver of goose pimples that rises right along my arms and up to my neck.

"There," he says, clearing his throat after he helps me with my other shoe. "Better?"

I wiggled my way down, sighing as my feet touch flat to the ground. "Much," I nod. "I'm really not used to wearing heels like that. They kinda scare me. I mean, those things are literally worth more than I am."