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With a step around the idiot, I approached the girl in the pink dress whose shoulders were slumped.
“Have you met AveryWilson?” I asked.
The dude stumbled back, blinking, but he recovered relatively quickly and shot finger guns at us. “Your dad’s the shit.” With that, he scurried away.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Instead, I calmly took a pull off my beer.
Avery tilted her chin up and assessed me, expression guarded. Fuck. Her dad would hang between us if I didn’t change the subject immediately. So I went for the first thing that came to mind.
“Can you believe he hit on you when I was standing right here?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” She tilted her head. “We’re not together.”
That statement was like a punch to the gut. Fuck, did she have to sound like she didn’t mind the attention from the douche?
“How does he know that?” I was the fucking Mario to her Peach. And I hadn’t left her side in the twenty minutes I’d been here. Those seemed like pretty big clues to anyone who was wondering. Even if we really weren’t together, like she said.
“Because you aren’t giving off the signals.” With her lower lip caught between her teeth, she perused the people around us. “See him?” She pointed to a shirtless idiot in a cowboy hat. Her eyes softened as she studied the guy and the woman beside him. “How he hovers?” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “How he’s always touching her, even if it’s just a brush of his hand?”
No, I didn’t see it. I wasn’t looking at the cowboy or the girl he was with. No, I was entranced by the woman beside me. The longing in her eyes told me exactly what she wished for.
“And that guy.”
I had no idea who she was talking about. There was no way I’d look away from her now. The guy didn’t matter. Her words were all I cared about.
“The way he watches her. He’s in a room full of people, but by the way he’s zoned in on her, it’s like he doesn’t realize they’re not alone.”
I brushed my thumb along the soft skin under her chin and tilted it up, forcing those blue eyes to mine.
“Someday, someone will look at you that way,” I promised.
It was the truth. She was the type of girl who inspired that kind of devotion. For months, I’d been working hard tonotlook at her that way. Because as enchanting as I found her, she wasn’t mine. And I respected her choice to remain single.
She gave me a ghost of a smile. “I hope so.” With a sigh, she twisted out of my grasp and brought her beer to her lips. As she did, her lips turned down.
“For someone who helped plan this party, you don’t seem like you’re having fun.”
She dipped her chin and shook her head subtly. “Actually, I’d much rather be home.”
Then why the fuck were we here? I would rather be home too.
I set my beer on the island again and gaped at her. “What?”
“I love setting up, planning the costumes. Decorating the ghost tree and making the spooky punch and the pumpkin mule. Even carving the pumpkins and making the food.” She eyed all the snacks set out along the counter. “But now that we have to practically yell over the music and people keep bumping into me, I’d rather be handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and watching a movie.”
I couldn’t agree more. About handing out candy and lounging in front of a movie. I had no interest in all the work it surely took to set all this shit up.
“My building is full of families. We left a bowl out for the kids.”
She might shoot me down. Hell, she probably would. But I’d take the shot anyway.
She turned to me and tilted her head back. A lock of hair fell into her eye, and there was no way I could talk myself out of tucking it behind her ear.
“Want to bounce? We could watch a stupid Halloween movie and hand out candy.”
Slowly, she took me in, her lips pursed and her expression thoughtful. The delayed response had my heart clenching. I was holding my breath and preparing for disappointment when she finally said, “I’d love that.”
I exhaled, instantly hit with a wave of relief. “Then let’s go, Blondie.”
