“Hi, I’m Wes.”
“Jaz.” Her hand flies out to meet mine, but her eyes ping-pong between me and the ice sculpture standing next to me. “I’m Joss’s best friend. How do you two know each other?”
She motions between us while still holding my hand in her grip, making it more of an awkward hand-holding wave before she finally releases me. It’s cute how she’s pretending Joss wasn’t just in the middle of telling her exactly how we met when I interrupted them.
My confident side kicks in and I sling my arm around Joss’s shoulder, giving her a little squeeze. I feel her tense slightly, but she quickly relaxes and looks up to catch my eye. She’s glaring at me. Fortunately, it’s more of anI’m a kitten that doesn’t know how to use its clawsglare than anI’m going to tear your heart outglare. I grin and look right into her eyes as I address Jaz.
“I, personally, was enjoying Joss’s retelling of this story. I would love to hear her tell us the rest.”
Her eyebrows pull together while mine lift in challenge. Staring at her face, I can see she’s still rosy with embarrassment and maybesomething else. I really hope it’s attraction. Her eyes flick down to my mouth while I talk. Yeah, that’s definitely attraction.
I feel it too, Joss, don’t you worry.
“Somebody better start talking before I’m forced to use my overactive imagination to fill in the blanks for myself,” Jaz says, impatience dripping from her tone. Her eyes continue to jump between us before finally landing on Joss, urging her to explain.
At that, Joss rolls her shoulders back to shake my arm away and hops off her stool, putting it between us as she turns to face me.
“It really wasn’t a big deal.” She shrugs off the words.Wasn’t it?I’m so curious to see how she spins this for her friend.
“Wes here,” she begins, waving her hand at me in a nonchalant way before turning back to Jaz, “clumsily fell on top of me while we were deplaning, felt me up, and then left his passport behind. Which I kindly returned to him before he could be arrested by customs for trying to enter the country without it.” Turning back to me, there’s a smug grin on her face and a gleam in her eyes. “I think that about sums it up, right, Wes?”
She says my name with an edge to it, and I think I love that too. I smile wider even though I can feel the heat in my cheeks. I’m not completely immune to embarrassment, I just tend not to care what people think of me. But with Joss, I care more than I should, and I have no clue why. I don’t even know her. She’s gorgeous, yes, but still, there has to be more to it.
Joss has now turned back to her friend, giving me a chance to let my gaze roam. She’s wearing worn-in running shoes, and her tanned, toned legs are on full display in a pair of shorts that cut high up on her thighs. She’s got on an old ratty sweatshirt and her hair is pulledinto a mess of curls atop her head. Honestly, I’m loving this version of her. Not that flight attendant Joss wasn’t a smoke show, but this girl is so obviously comfortable in her own skin that I’m flooded with a sense of awe.
Jaz lets out a low whistle, drawing my attention away from the gorgeous woman beside me. She’s still looking between us like we’re the most bizarre pair of animals in the zoo. “Well, that is not what I was expecting. You’re sure you didn’t just hook up in the bathroom?”
A bark of a laugh escapes me and I decide, on the spot, that I like her. I also decide it’s my turn to drag Joss into the hot seat.
“No, no. Joss spent so much time avoiding my attempts to catch her eye the whole flight that I couldn’t even strike up a conversation, let alone convince her to help me become”—I look directly at Joss now—“Mr. Mile High Club, was it?”
Joss snorts into her coffee and Jaz lets out another laugh that screamsbusted.
“It took my bag intervening on my behalf and creating the scene Joss described for me to finally get her undivided attention.” It’s her turn to full-on blush as she looks at me, and I do a mental fist pump. “Oh, and as I said on the plane, the whole groping thing was accidental.”
I place my hand over my heart like I’m pledging the truth to her. I mean, it is true. I’m not that guy, no matter how confident I come across.
“But I do owe you for chasing me down through the terminal to return my passport. Getting strip-searched by a customs agent would not have improved what was already a long day.”
This garners me another laugh from Jaz—at least she thinks I’m funny. I think Joss is trying to hold one in as well. Good, I’m not losing my touch. I’m about to ask Joss to sit and have coffee with me, but she abruptly turns away before I can.
“Well, I’m off. I’ve got to get groceries.” She plants her hands on the bar and hops up, leaning over to peck her friend on the cheek. “See you later.” The look Jaz gives her says she’s far from finished with this conversation. She turns to me as she grabs her coffee and slings her bag over her shoulder. “Wes, enjoy your vacation. Try not to flatten the flight attendant on your way home, yeah?”
She taps my shoulder once as she moves to leave, and the small touch makes my blood sing as a shock of awareness runs through me. She’s good, thinking she can brush past me and that will be the end of it.
But I don’t give up that easily.
“Actually…” I catch her open hand before she can sprint out of the coffee shop. “I’m not here on vacation, and my apartment is pretty bare on the grocery front. I wouldn’t even know where the nearest store is. Mind if I tag along with you?”
Her fathomless grey eyes are wide as she looks down at her hand, then back up to me, and then to Jaz as if asking to be saved. Jaz, however, does nothing but regard us with an amused smile on her face.
“You two have fun,” she says, giving us a wave before moving to greet a customer at the register.
As I start for the door, Joss’s hand still in mine, I catch the glare she sends her friend. I’m pretty sure she mouths something too, because Jaz’s laughter is the last thing I hear as we step out onto the pavement.
CHAPTER SIX
Joss
