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“No,” he replied smugly, and Adriana raised one eyebrow. “Yes, maybe I’ve been playing the game a lot since we parted ways. Not training. Playing.”
“Very funny,” Adriana said, then stopped as the waiter returned with their orders.
They were eating dinner in the restaurant across from their hotel, and as the waiter placed the bowls of food, Adriana looked across the table at Odysseus and realized how intimate the setting seemed. A glance around easily told her that most of the people in the restaurant were there witharmoron their minds. The tables were not exactly big, and any small movement had her legs brushing against his. The light in the restaurant was low enough, the music slow enough that it wasn’t hard for Adriana to start thinking things. Things that made her react in ways that made her glad for the low light.
“Something wrong with your food?” he asked, pointing with his fork at her dinner that she hadn’t even glanced at since the server put it down.
“No,” Adriana quickly said as she grabbed her fork and took a bite, savoring the delicious taste.
“So,” Odysseus said in a pause between bites, “What do you do now?”
“Me?” Adriana said, looking guiltily away from the lips she had been staring at.
He looked around them. “Who else could it be? Unless you have an invisible dinner partner I am not seeing.”
“I work in my dad’s bowling alley now,” Adriana replied, wondering briefly if her response sounded lame. “Well, I run it with Mark now.”
“Really?”
To her mild surprise, Odysseus had an excited look on his face.
“Yes,” she confirmed with a nod.
“That’s cool. I remember how you used to talk about the place and all those plans you had for it. So is the place as cool as you used to dream it would be?”
Adriana remembered how she used to talk with Odysseus about her plans for the future and her dreams for her father’s bowling alley. Remembering that also made her remember that in a way, Odysseus had been the closest person she had opened up to, and that in more ways than one.
“Kind of hard to do everything I used to plan back then, Odysseus, but I was able to do some things. Bought out the store next door, tore down the walls, and expanded the alley. Then put in a gaming center there.”
“So, you work in a place where you get to play games?” Odysseus slowly shook his head. “Talk about the best job ever.”
“I guess,” Adriana said with a smile. “How about you? Finally opened that multibillion-dollar company you used to talk about starting?”
“Well, I am my own boss, so that is something.” Odysseus shook his head with a rueful grin. “But I’m not worth anything close to a billion. At least not yet. I mainly write freelance stuff for a couple blogs.”
“Knowing you, I bet you still find a way to make it as fun-filled as possible.”
“Not too hard to do that.”
They continued chatting as they ate, and when they were done, ordered a single cheesecake to share for dessert.
“And how is the boyfriend?” Odysseus asked, and Adriana paused with her forkful of cake halfway into her mouth.
She swallowed it before looking at him. “Any reason why you assume I have a boyfriend?”
“Because I assume you don’t live in a place filled with blind, deaf guys.”
Adriana paused and stared at him, knowing how corny the line sounded but unable to deny the effect on her.
“Says something about your analogy, since I don’t have a boyfriend, and I can assure you that the guys I live around are neither blind nor deaf.”
“They must be really stupid,” Odysseus declared with a straight face, and Adriana found herself wondering if he was actually serious, but decided he was just teasing her.
“Nice to see you haven’t changed a bit,” she said with a small chuckle as she dropped the fork in her hand by the plate of cake.
“I’d like to think I have,” Odysseus replied, his gaze going smoky hot with an emotion she couldn’t lay her finger on.
“Really? How?”
