City Rose

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“This is going to be a fun evening, Julia.”

“I sense you’re going to torture that poor obnoxious waiter,” Julia said. “But it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.”

“I’ll leave him alone if he wises up a bit.”

Julia pouted. “I was looking forward to an evening of torture. You do it so well.”

“Listen, Julia, I don’t know what kind of evening you had in mind with me, but on a first date, torture is out of the question.” Although Will was trying to act serious, he couldn’t pull it off and eventually a grin spread across his face that he just couldn’t control.

Seeing that Julia was amused, he added “You’re lucky if I give you a kiss,” before he burst out laughing.

Julia’s jaw dropped in an incredulous yet amused reaction. “You can try and give me anything you want, Mister Will. What I’ll take is another thing.”

Will recovered from his laugh and smiled. “I agree. That was uncalled for, I’m sorry Julia. I didn’t mean to imply that you wanted me to torture you. Kind of inappropriate of me on a first date. I promise to be more of a gentleman from here on end.”

Julia wanted to deflate Will’s self-satisfaction. With a sly smile, she leaned forward. Partly by accident, and partly on purpose, her leg brushed briefly against his beneath the table. “Maybe I don’t want you to be a gentleman all evening, Will.” Her voice was low and seductive. “And perhaps torture is indeed in my little playbook.” She held her wrists together in front of her face as if they were hand cuffed, and then placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in the nook between her hands.

It was now Will’s turn to drop his jaw, but the effect she had on him wasn’t amusement. Julia saw how utterly taken he was with her and was quite pleased with herself.

The waiter broke the silence between them as he returned and placed two glasses on the table between them.

“Your lemon water.” He made sure to enunciate the last two words.

“I’ll take a stronger drink now, please, a stiff one,” Will said as he slowly snapped out of his trance.