His crotch was at eye-level and I couldsee a bulge.
My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard.
“Uh…nope. Here all by my lonesome,” I stuttered.
All by my lonesome?
What a stupid thing to say.
He sat down beside me and his eyes crinkled in the suggestion of a smile behind his plain black mask. “Thank you,” he said in a Texan accent, in that deep voice that sent shivers down my spine.
I looked at him again out of the corner of my eye.
Couldn’t help it.
He was…maybe late thirties, early forties? Face half-hidden, but still handsome—dark hair going silver at the temples, brown eyes, a jaw that I could see through the mask very much in the same way that I’d been able to see the distinct outline ofsomethingthrough his jeans. The crinkle at the corner of his eye made it seem like he laughed a lot, but maybe I was just drawing conclusions because I’d never actually been this close to someone this hot.
I swallowed again.
Stared at my spreadsheet.
Ifelt himlook at it.
“That spreadsheet looks like bad news,” he remarked.
I laughed before I could stop myself—a short, surprised sound that I immediately wanted to take back.
"That obvious?"
"The folding and unfolding gave it away." His eyes crinkled again. "You've done it four times since I sat down."
"I've been doing it for forty minutes," I admitted. "It's not getting better."
"Spreadsheets rarely do."
I looked at him sideways. He was looking straight ahead at the wall across from us, where someone had hung a framed print of a sunflower field that was doing its best and not quite succeeding at making any of this feel casual. His hands were still on his knees. He had a ring of dried clay or maybe caliche along the side of his left boot that he hadn't noticed or hadn't botheredwith, and there was something about that specific detail that made my chest do a small, stupid thing.
Stop it,I told my chest.
"Bad news or just disappointing news?" he asked.
"Is there a difference?"
"Bad news is something went wrong," he said. "Disappointing news is something you wanted didn't work out the way you planned."
I thought about it. "Disappointing, then. Nothing went wrong exactly. The math just doesn't—" I gestured at the spreadsheet. "The math doesn't math."
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. Low and brief, more exhale than sound, but I felt it somewhere in my sternum which was insane and I was choosing not to examine it.
"You drive far?" he asked.
"San Antonio. You?"
"About an hour north." A pause. "Little town called Briar Hill. Probably never heard of it."
I hadn't. "First time here?"
"That obvious?"
