Page 24 of The Frog Prince
“I usually know people here,” he says abruptly. “It’s wild, but every time I’m here, someone I know walks in.”
“Really?”
He shakes his head. “It used to piss my girlfriend off. She said we were never alone, we always had a half dozen of my friends hanging around.”
“Ah.”
“We were going to get married. I mean, we’d talked about it.” His gaze keeps darting to the door. “I was the one that broke it off. I felt like shit when it ended. She was a good girl, she really was, and I don’t like breaking anyone’s heart, but man, she could be clingy. She didn’t have any opinions of her own. Couldn’t make a decision without asking me what I thought.” He sighs, a heavy, tired sigh. “She justneededso much.”
I find this fascinating. I can’t imagine any woman who’dneedTom that much. “I’m sorry.”
He sighs again, reaches up to pat the back of his head where his missing hair should be. “She took it pretty hard when I broke up with her. I think for a long time she thought we’d get back together.”
“How long were you together?”
“Seven months.”
I nod because he nods, and for a moment we stare at the table, and I think Tom must still have feelings for her, because his expression is distant, almost brooding.
“Christ, she had a hot body,” he says after a minute. “A really great body.” His hands rise; they’re broad through the palm, fingers medium size, and he shapes his hands as if he’s grabbing coconuts. “The sweetest, tightest little fanny ever. I loved her butt. Her face… it was okay…”
And then he looks up at me, straight into my eyes. “But nothing like yours.”
I don’t know what to say.
Tom is leaning so far forward that I feel as if we were in prison, exchanging secret information. “You’re beautiful.”
I pull back. “It’s just a face.”
“No, no. You have a great face. Really pretty. Beautiful eyes.” He’s still leaning forward, and he smiles warmly. He’s paid me a huge compliment. He wants me to realize that it’s significant. “I’m sure you know, there are two kinds of men: the kind that just want a hard body and don’t care about the face, and then there are the men that need a pretty face and can put up with a wide ass.”
I gather I fall into the wide-ass category. “So you’re saying I don’t need a paper bag?”
He laughs. Ha ha ha ha. “No. I’d never put a paper bag on your head. I’d want to see those beautiful eyes when I make love to you.”
Please let me throw up, so I have a reason to go home.
“Tell me, Holly. I want to know. How old do you think I am?”.
I think he thinks he’s being deep. I also think he thinks this is a really great conversation. However, I will go with the trivia questions any day if it means we don’t have to talk about him making love to me. “Twenty-eight?”
He grins. I guessed well. “Thirty,” he says flatly, firmly, clearly impressing me. “You couldn’t tell.”
“No.”
“I work out a lot. Run. Lift weights. Spend a lot of time on the elliptical machine.” He looks at me, as if waiting for me to ask the question I’m dying to know, and when I don’t (because I haven’t a friggin’ clue what he’d want me to ask now), he supplies more. “In case you’re wondering, I’m in great shape.”
“Yes.”
“Reaaallllygreat shape.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve got stamina.”
Ah. I see where he’s going now. We’re back to sex. We get to talk about Mr. Penis now, and I suddenly think of my brother, Jamie, and I can’t imagine him ever talking about his body parts. Not on a date. Not even to other guys. Jamie would be appalled. But then, he’s never had a difficult time meeting women. They’ve always fallen all over themselves to get to him.
Jamie was a star baseball player in high school, went to Arizona State on a baseball scholarship, and his senior year he was Mr. October in the Arizona State University calendar the sororities put together to raise money for literacy.