Page 10 of Tap My TOKTIK

“Working. I run my own business so that comes first.” I relate to that because it’s not like anyone could just write my books for me. I have to do the work, and sometimes that’s all-consuming. Well, more often than not. “Dating just never really fit into my plan.” I never really had a plan, this was all an accident. My whole life is like ‘oh is this what we doing now’ and I just roll with it. A relentless, and endless comedy of errors, really.

“What was the plan?”

“To take over the world,” he says, and for the first time I see a genuine smile on his stern face. Harlan fills our wine glasses in a moment of awkward silence. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, and his hair is quite messy, you can tell he came here straight from work. He’s a gentleman, he pulled out my chair for me, but he’s rough around the edges. I can’t imagine him laughing, that one small smile seemed a stretch, and I will hazard a guess that he’s a bit of an asshole to work with. “You’re very quiet for someone who has a list of questions,” he remarks, catching me staring at him.

“I somehow feel that my questions don’t really apply to a man like you.” Technically, they don’t. I wanted to ask questions about dating and he doesn’t date.

“What sort of man is that?” he asks, staring at me. His hardened features make him quite intimidating, and I’m left wondering if that’s his natural expression or if I’ve offended him. I do that often, offend people, but never on purpose. I can always control the words I put onto a page, but the ones that come out of my mouth? They pass go without collecting the two hundred bucks.

“One who isn’t dating,” I say, choking on my sip of wine. Spluttering, and coughing all over the place, I knock over my glass. Of course it doesn’t mess on my black dress, because that’s just too obvious an outcome. Instead, it sloshes all over Harlan’s crisp white shirt. He jumps up, but only to avoid the spillage and smack me on the back and try save me from choking on my own words and his expensive wine.

“Are you okay?” he asks, patting my back just hard enough for it not be of any help. “Lift your arms above your head.” He yanks my arms up straight. Strangely, that actually works and I can breathe again.

“Thank you, I’m fine,” I say, my throat scratchy and my embarrassment making the words come out muffled. “I’m so sorry, you have wine everywhere.” I will not be that weird chick trying to wipe the mess off his shirt so I just sit there and look at it while dying inside. The squirrels in my head, however, are sitting at their desks and taking notes on their typewriters. Squirrels don’t like Apples.

“It’s a shirt, I have others. Are sure you are all right?” Harlan sits down beside me again and wipes his shirt with a napkin. It isn’t going to take the red wine stains out, it just spreads them around some more. I watch him draw in a breath, trying to clam himself down. He’s obviously upset about the shirt, and his forced politeness is off-putting.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, but before I can finish my apology the hostess brings him some kind of wet-wipe thing to clean his shirt. She seems to have no problem being the inappropriate weirdo touching the man to clean his shirt. Ugh. I write that shit into books, it’s cheesy and crosses boundaries. You shouldn’t just touch people. Unless they are choking, maybe that’s an exception. I roll my eyes at her fluttering lashes and fake smile. My book characters have more depth and they’re not even real.

“Thank you,” he snaps at her. “I’ve got it.” I don’t think he was impressed that she breached his personal bubble. “You can do something useful, and go see where our food is.” He’s quite rude to her, and I have no clue whether to laugh at the poor woman’s expense, or feel offended on her behalf. The poor woman looks utterly shocked that he didn’t want her fake tits shoved in his face. I stifle my laugh, and stop before I take a of sip my wine. If I choke a second time, he’ll surely have to give me CPR — aaaand now I’m thinking about his damn lips. God, this is worse than a blind date. At least I knew I was meeting a stranger who wanted to meet me. Harlan is intimidating, and these awkward silences are making me sweat. I was already sweating before, and God, I hope I don’t smell. I try do an inconspicuous sniff test but all I can smell is spilled wine. Let’s hope it masks any body odor my nerves have caused. This time I catch him staring at me.

“Did you just smell your armpit?” he asks. This is the deer-in-headlights moment. I just look at him, unable to put words in order to respond. “If you were stinky I would have moved to another seat, and I would have told you. You smell like Cabernet Sauvignon and Channel. Not No.5, the other one, CoCo.” What is he? A bloodhound? I’m impressed but I also find it very weird that he smelled me. I just smelled me, but I’m me. I can. This is getting very uncomfortable, and I know I need to say something, but I don’t know what the fucking fuck to say.

“Yes, I sniffed my pit, I’m a nervous sweater and you make me nervous.” Sweet Lord, I said that out loud. He just looks at me with wide eyes. After a few seconds of me quietly dying, the one side of his mouth tilts up slightly. A micro-gesture and he says, “Hmm, I make you nervous.” As if that doesn’t make me more nervous.

“Don’t flatter yourself, most people make me nervous,” I retort because his smugness is making me uncomfortable. “When I’m nervous, I talk a lot and I sweat.”

“You haven’t talked much.” He shifts in his seat, leaning closer to me. Is he smelling me?

“Out loud. I’ve had an entire conversation in my head,” I admit, trying to lean away from him. I wonder what he smells like, other than wine, that is.

He raises his brows. “With yourself or with me?” I can’t tell if he’s genuinely asking or if he’s making fun of me. Though my bet is on reason number two.

“Both, I think.” This, this exact exchange, is why I don’t date. Why I don’t engage with humans, and why I shouldn’t be allowed to. I’ll be replaying this shit-show in my head for the next twenty years or so, and be just as embarrassed every time.

“You live inside your head a lot, Olivia.” It’s not a question, but an observation.

“That is sort of my job, so yes.” This the part where normal people text their friends SOS, and get the hell out of the embarrassing situation. My characters would have them call with an extreme emergency, life or death. She would dash out and end her suffering.

I don’t though. I just sit there in silence as our steaming hot food is placed on the table. Harlan stares at me the entire time, not even looking down at his plate. I wonder if it’s too late to ask them to send this upstairs and just run. I mean, I wore flats for this exact reason. I’d kill myself walking in heels on a good day, never mind running. He clearly can tell I’m insane, he wouldn’t even be surprised at this point.

“More wine?” he asks but fills my glass before I can answer. Well, I’m fucking this up already, I might as well get drunk. It’ll take a bottle or six of wine to do that though.

“Thanks.” His phone rings, and he pulls it from his pocket, silences the call and puts it face down on the table. “You can answer if you need to.” Step away if you must, fuck anything to end the agony of this meal.

“It can wait. It’s rude to take calls at the table.”

No one ever calls me so I wouldn’t know. Anyone who would call, knows better and texts me instead.