I walked up to the fence and hooked Beau’s lead through the gap. I stood back up and looked at Mike.
“White,” he said.
“Black,” I said, then decided to add, “I am surprised you didn’t have another ‘oxblood’ up your sleeve.”
“Alabaster,” he said immediately, correcting himself.
Mike 3…
“Obsidian,” I said with a nod to his shirt.
Juliette 1!
Mike smiled at this.
“You’re getting better,” he said.
Redirect.
Immediately.
I had a big fat fucking crush on her. I could admit that.
I could also admit that I sort of flirt with her too, but it’s the type of flirting that you can only catch if you read between the lines. It was honestly exhilarating. I spend the majority of my day talking blandly to coworkers or to students (the latter of which might as well be me talking to a brick wall with a microphone).
But when I talk to Juliette?
She is intelligent, quick-witted, and dishes it back to me just as quickly as I volley it to her. Her vocabulary and the sentences that she weaves together… I mean, she used the word “obsidian” for an item of black clothing I had on.
I’m an English professor.
That’s basically first base.
Dirty talk, even.