Description: Pike Setter has just laid all his cards on the table. He has really been doing all of this not to be a nice guy, or to help Eve in any sense of the word, but to impress Julie. Will his heroic act warrant a reward for his efforts, or will he crash and burn?
Eve Goes to New York. PART 31.
So that was it. Julie should have known. She should have expected this. Pike had laid out all his cards on the table and the result was a full flush, full of flushing endearment. It was not the kindness shown to Eve for getting Sabine to make the Miss Teenager pageant legit, but rather a coy manipulative trick perhaps to get something from Julie. Or was it? Julie was always second-guessing everyone’s affections and not trusting anyone.
That one quality had both advantages and drawbacks. The advantage was self-defense and avoiding any mishaps or heartbreaks that she had known well from experience in her 20s. The drawback was simple: she would never get close to anyone. Wasn’t that what was keeping her from developing the kind of intimacy that led to first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Julie with a baby carriage? She thought of Eddie back in Devon. He had always doted over her, but besides a flirtatious wink or gesture, or an occasional date once in while, Julie had never given him the satisfaction of committing to be his girlfriend. How long would it be until she dropped her guard and allowed her heart to have feelings for guys like Pike? Was she going to use this self-protection strategy forever, she wondered?
Before she could clear her thoughts, Pike had flicked his finished cigarette butt at a statue and moved into her personal space, like a soldier that treaded underwater through enemy lines. She gasped when she realized she was staring into his eyes only several inches away.
“I went to bat for Eve because of you, Julie,” he reiterated. “I risked my job, such as it is, for maybe a gesture of affection?” His hands brushed softly over her shoulders.
Like a speeding race car in the distance that you don’t see coming until the last minute, Pike was moving fast. Perhaps a little too fast for Julie’s taste.
“I… I’m grateful, Pike…” Julie muttered, not knowing where to go from here, knowing she barely had seconds before his lips found hers.
Quickly, she turned her back to him and casually glanced at the historical displays behind glass that hung on the wall.
She almost jumped a mile when she heard his voice over her left shoulder. “Lots of things start with gratitude,” he said with a gentle voice in Julie’s ear, followed by cigarette breath that made her want to gag.
She turned to a statue, any statue, she didn’t care, and brushed dust off its shoulder. “Isn’t this interesting?” she said, trying her best to sound interested when her nerves were crying out for a powder break.
“Fascinating,” was Pike’s unemotional reply, acknowledging defeat. His countenance fell. His shoulders drooped. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets like a whiny little two-year-old, realizing that his attempt to receive his reward of affection had failed.
“Keep an open mind on me, Julie,” he said. “I don’t give up easy.”
That was exactly what had Julie worried.
