“Am I supposed to know who you’re trying to impersonate?” he asked, referring to the voice.
“Ohno,” I replied, shaking my head. “Name one thing worse than dropping a reference and the other person giving you a blank look.”
He chuckled, then nodded at the window over his shoulder. “A plane crash, that’d be worse.”
That got a laugh out of me. “True enough. Anyway, that’s my—admittedly very crappy—impersonation of Ron Swanson fromParks and Rec.”
Val nodded slowly in understanding. “I’ve heard the name of the show. Never seen an episode though, I’m not much of a TV guy.”
“That’s…not surprising,” I said.
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“I mean, no offense or anything.”
“I’ll watch the occasional documentary.”
I laughed. “So no feel-good sitcoms for you?”
“Not typically. Anyway, what’s this show?”
“Right. It’s calledParks & Rec,and it’s about this group of people who work in the, well, Parks & Rec department in Pawnee, Indiana.”
“Pawnee? That doesn’t sound familiar.”
I had to laugh at that. Something about Valentino gave me the impression he would know if Pawnee was a real place or not.
“It’s made up. So, the head of the department is this woman named Leslie Knope.”
“Nope?”
“Knope, with a K. She’s actually really funny—a lot of people have said that I remind them of her.”
He cocked his head to the side, curious. “So, she’s extremely good-looking and charming?”
I was blown away by the directness of his comment. Maybe he was flirting, but it also seemed as if he was simply stating a fact. His brow was slightly furrowed, and his mouth wasn’t curled in the sort of flirty smile you’d expect from a guy throwing out something like that.
“Not quite. I mean, she’s good-looking, but she can be a little awkward too. Most of all, she’s kind of a do-gooder, someone who tries to make the world a better place in whatever way she can. And she’s pretty ambitious, like me.”
“Nothing like an ambitious woman,” he said, raising his cup.
I raised my cup in return. Before we touched rims, however, I held back. “Wait, you’re not being sarcastic, are you?”
He seemed confused. “What? Why?”
His reaction told me right away how silly of a question it was. Val didn’t seem like a sarcastic sort of guy. He was a straight talker, through and through. In my experience of a world full of spineless guys who seemed afraid to tell me what was on their mind, it was damned refreshing.
“Never mind,” I said. “Anyway, you like ambition in a woman?”
“I do. An ambitious woman is a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go for it. And if you ask me, there isn’t anything in the world that’s sexier than that.”
I was liking this guy more and more with each word he spoke.
The conversation flowed effortlessly. As we sipped our drinks, we chatted about work and Denver and what brought us to New Haven. I told him all about my job as a graphic designer, and he informed me of his job—an orthopedic surgeon who took frequent flights around the country to operate on high-profile clients. Not only that, but he was the exclusive surgeon for the Denver Nuggets.
Pretty damn impressive.
The longer we talked, I discovered that he was funny and charming and impossibly attractive inside as well as out. There were more than a few times when I simply lost track of what he was saying, so wrapped up in simply watching his gorgeous face as he spoke.
