Chapter 12

I'm pretty good with people. I'm congenial, self-assured and a good conversationalist, so I had fully expected to be able to charm Alex round. I hadn't expected her to charm me. Yet here I was, on my third - fourth? - drink of the night, happily settling back into my chair with no desire to run away or bash my companion over the head with a plate. It was the most successful date I had been on in weeks. If it had been a date.

"You know, I had a lecture to prep for tonight," Alex admonished me as she arrived back in her seat from the bathroom. "I don't know what my boss is going to think of me..."

"The rate things are going she's not even going to make it in tomorrow, so I think you're probably safe." This was untrue, of course - I hadn't missed a day of work in months, maybe years, and I wasn't so drunk that I was going to break that streak.

Alex laughed though, obviously not taking me too seriously, and returned to sipping at her own whisky, cradling the glass in her hand. I took this opportunity to really look at her, noticing again the interesting dichotomy of her appearance - her hardwearing, sensible clothing and shoes, her cropped hair, short fingernails, simple stud earrings and lack of any make-up sitting at odds somehow with her feminine figure and pretty face. She had full lips, long eyelashes and dark eyes that twinkled when she was smiling, and I suddenly wished that more women chose to eschew make-up day-to-day, just letting nature do its own work. I had spent enough time in the field over my career that I was perfectly comfortable letting people see me without a 'face' on, but even I tended to put on a touch of mascara and some natural coloured lip gloss in the morning when I was based at the university.

I must've been staring, just a bit, as she caught my eye and smirked just slightly, causing me to blush at being caught. "Anyway," I said, keen to move the conversation on as quickly as possible now, "we ought to go sailing. What do you think?"

She looked slightly taken aback at this, but by no means reluctant. "Sure, why not?" she said. "Although I have to warn you, I'm pretty rusty. Is there, I don't know, a university sailing club or something? Or are you just going to steal back your yacht?"

"I suppose we could start small... though it is a very nice yacht."

"I think maybe I should get back out in a wayfarer again before I start playing with the rigging on a thirty-footer," she said, her chuckle making it sound almost suggestive, though I couldn't think of any double entre off-hand that actually made sense, so I just smiled a little and took a suitably enigmatic sip of my wine.

"When's good for you?" I asked after a few moments had passed; it surprised me how eager I was to do this, but the idea of getting out on the water again was incredibly tempting. "I've got that conference this weekend, but maybe the one after?"

"Oh, um..." Alex looked a little taken aback again, and I wondered whether I'd overstepped the mark slightly, but it didn't take her long to parse the request and apparently deem it acceptable. "Sure," she said, shrugging good naturedly. "Absolutely. I mean, why not?" She grinned.

"A ringing endorsement if ever I heard one," I laughed. "All right. I'll look into the best way to do this and let you know what I find."

Alex's smiled turned just slightly shy again. "I'll look forward to it."

 

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