“I know, honey.” She patted me on the back.

CHAPTER FIVE

Twenty minutes later I was dressed, perfumed, made-up, brushed, and about to collapse from nervous tension when Braden called from the lobby to tell me he was on his way up. Jess gave me a final once over and nodded her approval.

“Just remember, Gab, he's just as scared of you as you are of him.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

The bell rang soon after and all of the oxygen mysteriously left the room. That happened a lot lately. Maybe I should check into a pulmonary specialist too. Jess walked over calmly and swung the door open like the father of a sixteen-year-old girl headed for the Junior Prom. She managed to look both deliriously happy for me and mildly menacing at the same time.

“Mr. Pierce. Won't you come in?” Yeah, that sounded warm and inviting.

“Thank you.” He smiled and I saw her soften just a little. “Call me Braden.” Had I ever noticed how cultured his voice sounded before? Probably not, since previously I had only heard him argue with me and tease me. He walked into our apartment looking much better than he had a right to, in a pair of loose fitting tan chinos and a white polo shirt. He could have just stepped out of an ad for Ralph Lauren. The Rolex was pretty nice too. And oh, I smelled the spicy-minty. Yum.

“You can call me Jessica,” she said, giving him a once over.

“Thanks.” He turned in my direction. “You look great,” he said, checking me out none too subtly, starting at my Manolos and moving upward. His eyes seemed to linger a couple of extra seconds on my chest. I guess that he agreed with me about the top. Eventually his gaze made it up above my neck. “You always wear your hair tied back in court. I didn't realize that it was that long until last night.” He was looking at it like he was picturing doing something naughty with it. Suddenly I could have cared less if my hair felt like a wet blanket on my head later. He had managed to turn me on just by looking at me. This man was much too sexy.

“Thanks. You seem younger when you're not looking so… prosecutorial.”

“Well you know, the mantle of authority and all.” He grinned.

“Okay kids, don’t forget, Braden there has to go to school tomorrow so don’t stay out too late.”

“Thanks mom.” I smiled. Braden held the door for me and I led the way to the elevator. It felt like the air was thick with sexual tension already and we weren’t even five minutes into this date.

“It's a perfect night for a walk,” he said.

“Good.” I smiled with genuine pleasure. “I like walking around the city in the evening. There's always this feeling like something exciting is about to happen.”

“Maybe something exciting is about to happen,” he said, stepping into the elevator with me and looking directly into my eyes in a way that made me breathe faster. There was definitely an oxygen shortage in this building. The tension started to build even more. He glanced at the emergency stop button like he wanted to push it and then push me up against the wall. I probably only noticed because I was thinking the same thing. Neither one of us pushed the button, though. We reached the ground floor without interruption and the doors slid open, breaking the spell.

“This restaurant is literally like two minutes away, just over on Sansom. It's a little kabob place. The lamb is good if you don't think too much about how cute and cuddly your entrée once was.”

“I try not to contemplate what my dinner was like in life.”

“Probably wise.” I glanced up at him and smiled. “So, you grew up around here?”

“In Bryn Mawr,” he replied, naming a town on the Philadelphia Main Line with one of the wealthiest zip codes in the United States.

“Nice neighborhood.”

“The Upper East Side of Manhattan isn't too shabby either.”

“Been talking to Mark huh? What else did you find out?”

“Your mom is a VP at Goldman Sachs and your father is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. So, you’re a trust fund baby like me but you’re an only child. I’ve got to share my inheritance with my younger brother and sister.”

“Well, at least you know I'm probably not after your money.”

“Most people highly motivated by money don't become public defenders.”

“My parents like to point that out too, but not for the same reason.”

“Are you close to your mom and dad?” he asked.

“Yes, very. They’ve been happily married for twenty-eight years and they’re very loving parents. Is your family close?”

“Yes, exceptionally,” he answered. “My parents have been happily married for thirty years. And my brother and sister and I are close even though Drew and I rag on each other.”

“You went to Georgetown Law and you’re twenty-seven like Mark?”

“Right. You went to Penn Law and you’re twenty-six?”

“Yep. So now we know the details,” I said with a smile.

“Now we know the details,” he agreed.

“Ah, here we are,” I said as we approached the restaurant. “I warned you that it's not fancy.”

“I don't care about fancy as long as it tastes good. I'll try the lamb even though I'm afraid that now I'm going to think about how cute my dinner once was.”

“Sorry about that.” We went down the steps from the sidewalk to the entrance below and entered into the quaint interior filled with delicious smells and Turkish music. I saw my friend Ahmet rushing to greet us.

“Gabrielle! It's good to see you! Come in! Sit down! Damla will be happy you are here! And you brought someone with you!” He gave me an inquisitive smile.

“I've been telling him how great the food is here.”

“Ah, yes thank you!” He beamed. He handed us menus and then hurried off. He was back in a moment with his wife Damla.

“Gabrielle! You are looking so beautiful! And who is your friend?” Damla asked with a huge smile. Damla was so warm she glowed.

“This is Braden. He's a lawyer too.”

“And are you on a date?”

“We are actually, yes.”

“That is good news!” she said, clapping her hands excitedly. Great, even the people at the kabob place were thrilled to see me with a date. “She is very lovely!” Damla said to Braden. “She will have beautiful children someday.” I wanted to slide out of my chair and crawl under the table to hide. I started to read the menu with the focus of a Talmudic scholar.

“I haven't had that yogurt soup in a while. That was really good.” Thankfully they took the hint.

“I'll send Fatma over to take your order. Have a very nice date!” Damla said sweetly.

“We hope we will see you many times,” Ahmet added. They kept smiling and waving as they backed up toward the kitchen. When they got there I saw them peek their heads back out again. They had huge smiles and waves for us. I waved and spoke to Braden as I smiled back at them.

“I helped them with some immigration stuff once. They're very thankful people. And I haven't really dated anyone in a while so I guess they're happy that my attractive ovaries might not go to waste.”

“Why haven't you been dating?” he asked.

“My opportunities are mostly for inner-office romances or one night hook-ups with strangers but neither one of those really appeals to me much. So, why have you been… um?”

“Having casual sexual encounters with no emotional investment or commitment?”

“I was just going to say not dating, but okay, if you prefer.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been interested enough to want to know more about a woman than whether she preferred to be on the top or the bottom.”

“Oh. Well, I’m flattered, I guess, and for the record, I like both. It just depends on my mood.” He grinned and I saw his eyes start to heat up. Fatma came over and took our order. When she left Braden picked up where we left off.

“I should warn you that I’m very out of practice with the dating thing and it might take me a little while to get back into that mindset. For example, although part of me is sitting here thinking, wow here’s this amazingly smart and sexy woman and I really want to get to know her better, there’s still that other part of me that’s thinking I want to take her back to my place and bang her until she can’t walk straight.”

I felt a little lightheaded for a second but then I imagined a little Jess hovering over the table saying “Confidence, Gabrielle! It’s okay to want to be banged until you can’t walk straight, honey!” I wasn’t exactly sure why Jess was dressed like Yoda but I was just going to go with it.

“Ah, well. They don’t really have to be mutually exclusive goals do they?” I started, and his grin slowly got bigger as his gaze got hotter. I was feeling very baby gazelle-like at the moment.

“Not at all,” he said in a low sultry voice.

“Not tonight! I mean, because, well you have to go somewhere tomorrow.” I swallowed.

“Okay? So, you don’t want to hook up with me?” He looked confused. Oh fuck! I was totally messing this up! I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t want to!

“I’m not saying that I don’t want to have sex with you! Believe me! I do! In fact, I want to have hot sweaty monkey sex with you! Okay, maybe that was a bit too candid. I’m just saying that I want it to be different than if you just picked me up in a bar. I wouldn’t want you to just leave and thank me on the way out the door. I’m not expecting some kind of huge emotional connection right away. I just want it to be different than going to bed with my vibrator. Do you know what I mean?”

“You have a vibrator?” he asked with a smile and I rolled my eyes. “I’m just kidding! I know what you mean, Gabrielle. Would it shock you if I told you that I felt that way too?”

“You do?”

“I’m sitting here on a date with you, aren’t I? I invited you over to my place to spend time with my friends. I invited you to my family’s fundraiser at my parents’ home. Obviously, I don’t view you in the same way as some person I hooked up with at a club last weekend and whose name I forgot. Or never knew. What I meant was that I’m trying to do this right but I’m distracted by how much I want you physically. That’s all.”

“Oh. Oh!” I smiled. “Well, um, I feel that way too. You distract me a lot. ”

“I kind of got that from the hot, sweaty, monkey sex comment.”

“Oh Jesus. I really said that, didn’t I?” I felt my face getting hot.

“Don’t be embarrassed! Weirdly enough, I think that may have been the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me. And believe me, I would be happy to oblige, but I understand what you’re saying about tonight. And I’d like to be able to take my time and not be worried about having to be somewhere. Don’t worry, I’m a big boy and I can wait a while. Not a long while. I have kind of a strong libido.”

“So do I and I don’t have much of an outlet for it, so believe me, I don’t want to wait a long time either. I’ve been having X-rated dreams about you for God knows how long. Okay, that’s probably too much information too.”

“You’re a very upfront person.” He laughed.

“With you at least, it seems. So anyway! Since that’s not in the cards for tonight, maybe we could just focus on getting to know each other better. We did the basic details but we didn’t try to figure out if we have similar interests. Besides sex I mean,” I said, and he laughed again. “I amuse you, don’t I?”

“Yes, very much, and that’s one of the things that I like best about you. I’m sorry if this sounds sexist but I find you kind of adorable sometimes.”

Our entrees arrived then and we spent the rest of the meal discussing hobbies, books, movies, television shows, our college majors and activities, and our favorite pastimes. (Besides sex.) Amazingly, Braden and I actually had a lot in common. Perhaps the oddest thing we shared was a mutual enjoyment of watching PBS in bed. We wound up talking for hours. By the time we sat sipping our Afghan tea I felt much more comfortable with him, even though I was more attracted to him than ever.

“Well, that was delicious. Excellent choice. So where did you want to take me now?” Immediately, my stomach got a little queasy and it wasn’t because of the lamb. Even I had to admit that what I was going to suggest was kind of an eccentric thing to do on a first date — or any date.

“I want to take you to hear one of my favorite musicians.”

“Okay, great!” He called Ahmet over with the check. He and Damla effused joyful tidings a bit more and wished us well. I'm not sure, but I think they may have actually blessed us in Turkish. Braden left them a very generous tip and I knew he would now be on their list of VIPs. It was after nine when we finally left.

“We have to go to Suburban Station.”

“Suburban Station? Is this musician out of town?

“Nope.” I smiled and didn't elaborate. We walked the several blocks to the entrance I was looking for, descended the steps and started walking through the cavernous tunnels leading to the underground regional rail station. As we rounded a bend I heard what I was listening for, a deep rich smoky voice singing the blues and strumming a guitar. It was Stan the bluesman. I started walking faster. Within a couple of minutes we came upon Stan. He was sitting on a couple of milk crates holding his guitar.

“Gabrielle? Is that you?” An elderly voice called out to me. Stan’s eyes were going a little in his old age.