as he could figure.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Is 7 okay for you to leave? I’ll stop by your apartment.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said, the bright smile coming back on her lips.
“I’ll see you later then,” he said, flashing a smile of his own.
***
7 o’clock on the dot, Michael found himself knocking on her front door. He shifted nervously on his feet as he waited for her to answer. He felt like he should have brought something, flowers maybe. He felt like he was picking her up for a date but then shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to think more of what it really was, not wanting to get his hopes up about how she really felt. Until Jordan said so herself, he was just going to keep his attraction to her a secret.
When she finally opened the door a few moments later, his jaw dropped to the floor. Wrapped in an emerald dress that hugged her every curve, the very vision she made had his mouth watering. “You look beautiful,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
She giggled at the reaction she got. “Thanks,” she said, grinning widely. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
“I tried,” he mused with a deep sigh. “But next to you, I’m pretty sure I look like dirt.”
Jordan took in how he looked. Dressed in a blue-grey long-sleeved button down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up his elbows, over dark wash jeans, he was quite attractive. “You look great. Trust me.”
“Thanks. Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, just let me grab my purse.”
“Do you want me to drive?” he asked as they walked down the steps of their apartment building.
“If you don’t mind,” she replied. “I don’t really plan on drinking. Maybe a drink during dinner but nothing else afterward. I just don’t want to drive in heels.”
“If you wanna drink, that’s fine by me,” he said with a smile. “You deserve to be able to relax after the week you’ve had.”
And it was true. Part of the reason she had wanted to check out the new bar was to get her mind off of the busy work week that she had just been through. But the other part of her was thinking more along the lines of spending even more time with Michael.
A lot of people had pulled her aside and asked if anything was going on with them. A pretty girl with an attractive guy getting close apparently screamed “banging” to some of her friends and colleagues. Jordan had never really thought much of it, thinking that she had just found someone she had a lot in common with so it was easy for them to get along. But as they got to know each other better, and perhaps because of how many people kept asking her about it, she was starting to look at Michael in a different light.
At first she had shrugged it off, thinking that people were just getting into her head. But when she caught herself staring at him one day, thinking how soft his hair looked and wondering what it felt like to run her fingers through them, she knew it had gone beyond just being in her head. Over time, she began to notice more things she found cute and endearing about him. From how his smile always seemed to be higher on the left, making it look like he was always smirking, to the way he wove his hands through his hair when he was deep in thought, to how his favorite shirt brought out the green flecks in his blue eyes – she could no longer deny that she was actually quite smitten.
Asking him out under the guise of two friends just looking to check out a new bar and having fun together may not have been the bravest thing she had ever done but considering how new the friendship was, she thought it was safe. If anything out of the ordinary happened and it wasn’t exactly favorable to how she was beginning to feel about him, maybe she could just blame it on having too many drinks or the atmosphere they were in.
It was only a short drive from their apartment to the bar. Jordan felt the need to
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