I amnotattracted to Cormac. I am repelled by him.
Well, repelled is a strong word. But if I found him attractive, surely I’d know by now. I mean, yes, there was that little blip in high school, but I stopped finding him interestinglike thatwhen I was seventeen. That was well over a decade ago, and anyway, I found plenty of questionable people attractive back then. Give a girl a break.
And yet, my eyes keep gravitating to his forearms. They look really solid. Like you could bounce a quarter off them.
I can almost hear Cormac telling me,You could bounce a quarter off anything solid, Nora.
And the world truly has transformed, because instead of annoying me, the thought makes me smile.
“Nora?” he says, jostling me back to the present.
Cookie issues another bark from within the interior of the house.
“Sorry, it’s the heat.” I wave a hand dramatically in front of my face. “It’s gotten to me.”
“Come in.” He takes my arm and leads me into the house, shutting the door behind me. The front room is large and airy, equipped with a red sectional couch, built-in bookshelves, a flat-screen TV bracketed to the wall, and an old-fashioned fireplace that has hopefully been blocked off, since a plush dog bed sits nestled inside of it.
Cookie continues to bark, until Cormac sighs and grabs a remote control propped up on the mantel and presses a button.
She instantly stops.
“What’d you do?” I gasp. “Zap her?”
He looks offended. “I don’t torment people into doing what I want.”
“Says the man who has suckered me into dog-sitting a demon.”
His lips twitch before settling into a reluctant smile. “Is that really the tack you want to take right now? I’ve agreed to the double date.”
The man has a point.
He continues, “I triggered a chew to be deposited into a translucent chute in the spare bedroom. She knew it would be released if she stopped barking.” He waves toward the adjoining room, which has a big round table with mismatched wooden chairs pulled up to it. A little notebook sits on top. “It’s all there in the manual. Take a seat. I’ll get you something to drink.”
I sit, feeling unmoored. Here’s more evidence of Cormac’s superior brainpower. His whole house is probably rigged up with little tricks. “Do you do research on your dog?”
“Of course not,” he scoffs as he heads into the kitchen, which is connected to the dining area by yet another open archway. “I do researchforher.”
My gaze lowers to the thick notebook in front of me.
I suppose the answers lie within. I nudge it with my finger, then flip through it. The pages are covered in messy cursive. My finger traces the loops as I try to work my brain around this—a man who loves his dog so much that he wrote a whole manual to help someone else take care of her.
I glance at him through the opening into the kitchen, feeling a sudden lump of emotion in my throat. “You may be a genius, but at least you have bad handwriting.”
He smiles as he opens the refrigerator. “That might hurt if I hadn’t seen your handwriting and didn’t know it’s just as bad.”
I can’t help but smile at him. I’m not sorry I’m here. The brewery is usually my safe space, but lately it feels off-balance.
Cormac glances over. “Your choices are water or your own nonalcoholic ginger beer.”
My smile stretches wider. “You buy my ginger beer?”
He peers at me, light from the kitchen window winking off his new glasses.
“Will you think less of me if I say my father gave it to me for free?”
“Yes. I was about to be impressed with your good taste.”
He shakes his head. “I gave up on impressing you a long time ago.”
