The gray-green eyes across the table were entrancing. Sarah shifted in her chair and swallowed nervously. A tiny metallic bell sound indicated that the five minutes allotted for this round was already ticking away.
Where to start? Was that sweat dripping down her back??
“I -” Sarah thought to share that she had once been a figure skater, but maybe that was a poor lead in since she hadn’t been on the ice since before her oldest daughter was born. It would likely sound more like, “I used to do wonderful things, but I don’t anymore.”
The gray-green eyes smiled patiently and didn’t even wander toward the open concept staircase where a fit little twenty-something flaunted her black dress across the landing and down the first few steps toward the main bar.
How electrifying to have someone’s full attention!
That also hadn’t happened since before her oldest daughter was born.
“Do you -” Sarah thought to ask if the gray-green eyed man was a Chelsea fan; he was wearing the right shade of blue but she couldn’t see the logo on his shirt very well since she’d slipped her glasses into her purse in an attempt to appear less nerdy. What if the logo was from Everton? It would likely sound more like, “I can’t exactly keep straight which logos belong to what teams.”
Still the eyes quietly waited. And that smile!
The girl with the black dress stopped halfway down the steps, drawing all but one pair of eyes to her as she inadvertently made herself the centerpiece of the entire establishment.
“My -” Sarah thought to tell him that her cousin had taken her horseback riding once and she loved the freedom of running through the fields with such grace and speed. She stopped herself and wondered why that thought had even crossed her mind. How on earth had that memory managed to surface so readily? And she mindfully suppressed her emphatic urge to clean up the spilled salt she spotted in the center of the table.
“God you’re such a boring person,” Sarah’s ex-husband’s icy cold voice crawled through her veins and she shivered at the horrific demons left behind to haunt her psyche, squeezing her eyes shut in a staunch effort to leave the past behind her once and for all.
Opening them again, Sarah’s heart sank. But only for just a moment.
The man’s gray-green eyes were no longer gazing across the table at her. They were looking down at the tabletop. And Sarah watched breathlessly as he brushed the spilled salt in broad strokes with one hand down into his other hand, which was cupped carefully alongside the draped white linen.
“I – I was just going to do that…” Sarah heard an entire sentence escape from between her lips before she could second guess herself.
The man with the gray-green eyes pushed his glasses up into place on the bridge of his nose, appearing positively delighted with Sarah’s grand finale.
And the chime of the bell reverberated throughout the dining area. The round was over.
Hillary Danaher 