“And if we get along and hit it off?”

“Then I guess we’ll keep doing it,” he answered. I waited. “Exclusively.” I realized that I had been holding my breath and I released it.

“Fine. I accept.”

“It’s time to go home. You’re agreeing to everything so easily that if we stay any longer you may wind up not going to bed sober or alone tonight.” Jess started gathering her things.

“So easily?” Adam demanded. “He gave her everything she asked for!”

“And I’m sure she’ll give him plenty of what he wants too. I have a newsflash for you, Mr. Roth. They wouldn’t have agreed if they didn’t want to. Come on honey. Time to go.” She grabbed her purse and started for the door. “Enjoy your last night as a player,” she called back over her shoulder.

“Make sure she gets plenty of rest,” Adam called back.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Braden said.

“Bye,” was all I replied. I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to say anything else. I stood up, (steadily, I think), threw my jacket back on and followed Jess out the door. Well okay, technically, I walked face first into the door, but right after that I went through it. It was probably a good thing that I was leaving.

* * *

I knew what was coming as soon as we got outside. Jess did at least wait until we were about half a block away before launching into her “I told you so” speech. It was the start of a weekend in a major city so as we walked and talked, we navigated around many interesting sights and sounds.

“So, why would he be paying attention to you, huh?” She smirked.

“Okay, maybe he's a little interested,” I admitted, stepping over a puddle of something I didn’t want to contemplate too deeply.

“A little? If we had stayed any longer you would have had to break out a calendar.”

“I said that I wanted more than ‘one and done.’ Besides, I amuse him. He’s looking for some diversion,” I replied, circling around a group of people who were either doing Thai Chi or line dancing – on a public sidewalk.

“Honey, Braden Pierce could easily find all the diversion he wanted. There were probably twenty women in that place who would have been happy to divert him on their knees in the men’s room and at least a dozen who already had.”

“Thanks, Jess! That image really puts me in the mood for romance,” I said, passing by a six foot tall guy with five o’clock shadow dressed in a purple polka-dotted miniskirt and sensible pumps.

“Hey, I'm just stating the obvious. I told you that it would be significant if he asked you out.”

“Tomorrow. He asked me out for tomorrow. Oh God,” I muttered, avoiding two pretzel vendors who seemed to be purposely ramming their carts into each other.

“Yeah, and you should remember, this is one sexually experienced guy. God only knows what he’s into. Maybe we should stop by that little shop. You know which one I mean.”

“Look, Dr. Drew, he himself said that he would be playing by the third date rule unless I said differently, so I don’t know about breaking out the sex toys yet.”

“You haven’t gotten laid in months. You might be the one to suggest it.”

“I'm pretty sure that I should wait until at least the second date before buying a remote control vibrator,” I noted, dropping a buck in the hat of a guy who was playing Feelings on the tuba.

“What, game night?” She rolled her eyes. “You should have held out for something better than that. I hope that this teaches you to listen to me from now on.”

“Here it comes, three, two…”

“I told you!”

“You already said that.”

“Okay. I told you asshat!”

CHAPTER FOUR

I had a hard time falling asleep that night and it wasn't just because of the tequila and beer induced bed spins. My brain felt like it might self-destruct every time I thought about the fact that my first attempt at flirting with Braden had been so wildly successful that I was now actually dating him. I was afraid that if I fell asleep I would wake up the next day and find out that it had all been a hallucination caused by some bad bean dip. So I laid there staring at my ceiling and not sleeping until about 3a.m. when my body finally told my brain to shut the f**k up if it didn't want me to look like an extra in Zombie Apocalypse tomorrow. Today. Whenever.

I crawled out of bed again at ten o'clock and staggered toward the smell of coffee in the kitchen.

“You look like hell,” Jess said, glancing up from the paper.

“Thanks,” I croaked. “You have no idea how much that doesn't help.”

“Do us both a favor and have some coffee,” she said taking a sip of her own. “So, where do you plan to go to dinner?”

“That little Middle Eastern place on Sansom.” The coffee maker looked like an oasis sitting there on the counter as I staggered toward it.

“That little hole-in-the wall place? He would take you anywhere you wanted. Why not someplace fancy?”

“That place is really good and the people who own it are sweet. Besides, it's close by. Maybe afterward we can go down to Suburban Station and see if Stan's playing.” I filled my mug and just as I was about to reach for the creamer I stopped myself. This was a black coffee kind of morning.

“Stan? You want your first date with a senator’s son to include a trip to a railway station to listen to a street musician?”

“Stan’s really talented. He’s credited on albums put out by some real blues giants.” I collapsed ungracefully into a seat across from her. Amazingly, I wasn’t hung-over, but it felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck and dragged for a couple of miles.

“Yeah Gab, thirty years ago, but he's a street musician now.”

“I think that if Braden doesn't like Stan and the Middle Eastern place, he's not going to like me much. Besides, I’m going to game night with him!” She smiled and shook her head like she thought that I was crazy but she loved me anyway. Then she got up and went over to the sink to rinse out her mug and put away the dishes in the drying rack.

I quickly finished my coffee and had just started to feel semi-human again when I heard my cell phone start ringing. I froze. Jess swung around and gave me an expectant look.

“Gabrielle! Answer your phone!” she ordered, diving at my purse. She grabbed it and threw a Hail Mary pass across our kitchen that would have had NFL scouts interested. I caught it… and fumbled… but Jess was on it. She threw her body on the bag and thrust her hand in just in time to click answer and pant into the phone like an obscene caller.

“Give me that!” I grabbed it away from her. “Hello?”

“Gabrielle? Are you okay? Was that a dog?”

“Braden? No, that was Jessica. She exerted herself a bit on the way to the phone.” I gave her a “what the hell is wrong with you?” look.

“I see. I think. Uh, anyway, I hope it's not too early…”

“No. I've had my coffee and I'm not even hung-over this morning.” I started straightening my pajamas like he could see me. And like it would matter that Betty Boop's ass looked crooked on my nightshirt.

“Are you usually hung-over on Saturday mornings?”

“No! I just meant that I might have gotten a hangover from last night because I don't usually drink a lot. I would have stopped after two beers and a shot but Mark pawned his shot off on me too.”

“You do remember that we’re supposed to go out tonight?” he teased.

“I wasn’t drunk!”

“So you remember hooking up?”

“What?” I heard him start laughing. He was kidding. Whew.

“Where did you want to go tonight?” He still sounded amused.

“It's not fancy,” I said hesitantly.

“Good. I wear a tie five days a week.”

“It's not that far from my apartment and we could walk there if you didn't mind.”

“Great, the weather's beautiful.”

“It's Middle Eastern food. Is that okay?”

“That's fine.”

“You're very easy to get along with outside of court.”

“Are you saying that I’m not easy to get along with in court?”

“You can be tough sometimes.”

“So can you.”

“You’re being very easy right now though.”

“Maybe I’m hoping you’ll be easy later.” He laughed and I felt myself start to sweat. “I’m teasing you. I said that I would leave everything up to you and I’m fine with all of your suggestions. It just so happens that I like casual, I like walking and I like Middle Eastern food.”

“Okay, well if you like walking we could go for a walk after we ate.”

“Sure. Did you have somewhere in particular you wanted to go?”

“Yeah, it's close by though. Either you'll appreciate it as much as I do or you'll think I'm kind of nuts but it would probably be better that you knew that going in.”

“What time should I pick you up?” he asked, sounding very amused now.

“How about six o'clock? I live in the Chatham. It's just off of Walnut…”

“I know exactly where it is. I live two blocks away from you.”

“Well, that would make a booty call very easy. Oh shit. I said that out loud too didn't I?” I heard him laugh really hard. Good, hopefully he thought I was joking.

“Gabrielle?”

“Yes?”

“I also like you.” I wanted to throw down my phone, jog the two blocks and throw myself into his arms.

“Yeah, well I like you too even if you do put my clients in jail. See you later Mr. Prosecutor.”

“See you later Ms. Saucy Mouth.”

We hung up and I collapsed onto the sofa and starting kicking my legs and making a noise so high-pitched that it probably attracted every canine on the block and was picked up by sonar in the Atlantic. Jess, who had tactfully left me alone, came running back in.

“Jesus, Gabrielle! Are you having a seizure?!”

“Please please please can I keep him mom? I promise I'll take care of him! Oh baby, I’ll take care of him!”

“Good lord. She's finally gone around the bend. Can I have your Manolos when they come to take you away?”

“Jessica, he's so sexy! He’s got such a great sense of humor and he was totally comfortable with me choosing everything. He even said something kinda sorta romantic. I've heard that such men existed but I've never seen one up close.”

“Well, we need to make sure we don't frighten him off. We'll approach him very slowly and speak in quiet gentle tones. Put on some nice perfume and let him sniff you.”

“God, I hope he doesn't think I'm nuts after tonight.”

“Oh don't worry honey. I'm sure that he already knows that you're nuts.”

* * *

At five-thirty Jess was sitting on my bed paging through Glamour while I got ready.

“It says that brown eye shadow really makes hazel eyes pop.”

“Why would I want my eyes to pop?” I asked, pulling a brush through my hair. I was leaving it down even though it was a warm night because he had seemed to find it so appealing the night before. I figured that if I was willing to shove my feet into high heels every day I had already demonstrated a willingness to undergo a little discomfort in the interest of looking good.

“You know what I mean.” Jess was the fashion and beauty expert of the two of us. She always looked great. Of course it didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous. She had long auburn hair, big chocolate brown eyes, creamy white skin and seriously dangerous curves. She couldn’t look bad if she tried.

“What are you wearing?” I picked up a short cotton skirt and a white scoop neck top.

“I figured this would be casual and comfortable but still show off my girl stuff. And the top makes my boobs look good without making me look like a walking dairy state.”

“Good choice. You're going to wear pretty undies aren't you?”

“It's only a first date and he has to leave early.”

“Gabrielle!” She sighed in exasperation.

“Okay! Just in case, I'll make sure that I don't wear granny panties.”

“Thank you! I talked to Mark today, by the way.”

“You did? Did he say anything about last night?”

“Of course! Why do you think I called him? Apparently everybody called him today. Turns out that Mr. Heavy-hitter hasn’t actually dated anybody since law school. He’s been riding the casual hook-up train for almost two years now.” She went back to paging through her magazine.

“He seemed to agree to date fairly easily.”

“Like I said last night, he wouldn’t have agreed if he didn’t want to. He was interested already, but you apparently blew his mind last night when you told him you would make him prove that he could handle your tongue.”

“Who was that woman?” I asked disbelievingly. Jess put down the magazine and stared at me silently for at least ten seconds. (Did you ever time that? It’s longer than you think.) Then she slowly rose to her feet.

“That woman was you, Gabrielle. Listen, I have something important to say to you and I need you to hear me. Be confident! You are sexy and he wants you. And it’s okay for you to want him back. As long as he treats you with respect you can screw his brains out if you want!”

“You’re very wise.”