“Personally, I think it’s pathetic that a grown-ass woman can’t keep her acerbic opinions to herself.” Her new bartender friend flashed a movie-ready smile.
The stranger gasped.
“One thing I hate most when I’m reading a book? Being interrupted. It’s like, dude, my nose is literally between the pages and I’m in another world. But being interrupted to be insulted? That’s some next level bullshit.”
Oh. She liked him. A lot.
The dressed down smut-hater rolled her lips between her teeth before mouthing thank you to the bartender, but she couldn’t just let it the fuck go. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate to read trashy novels in a bar.”
“As things go, it’s nowhere near the worst I’ve seen in a bar. She’s not reading it aloud. She’s not beating you with the book. She’s literally minding her own business and reading a freakin’ book. In fact, until you came up to order a drink I’m sure she didn’t even know you were there. This is most definitely a you problem, not a her problem.”
The woman’s face turned red and she muttered to herself about romance novels being shameful and giving women a bad name. After she’d walked away with her glasses of wine, Clare thanked the man again and bit into a mozzarella stick.
He waved her off. “Anytime you want to talk smut, I’m your guy. We’re in a smutty book club too if you want the details.”
“I’d like that.”
She returned her attention to her paperback, but a boisterous group of well-dressed young men arrived in the bar all at once and her stomach dropped. Hockey players. Worse still, Snow Pirates. Elliott’s Snow Pirates. As much as the coach generally didn’t socialize with his team, it was another reminder ofhimthat she didn’t need.
She’d seen him twice since the pharmacyincident. Both times they’d remained cordial, pleasant, and he was a true gent who mentioned that she had half a Cheeto caught in her hair.
She had avoided him for twenty fucking years even though they lived in the same town. She had assumed CVS had been a weird coincidence, that the world would right itself and she wouldn’t see him for another twenty years, but apparently, that wasn’t to be.
He just kept showing up. And so did her decade’s old feeling bubbling not-so-deep in her chest. Ugh.
She sighed and shoved another mozzarella stick in her mouth. Perhaps if she kept feeding her feelings fried cheese she would stop caring about the fact she’d seen Elliott again. Or maybe the cheese would kill her rage. Ha! Perhaps cheese was the cure for anger and no one had ever eaten enough to see the results.
Challenge accepted.
“This seat taken?”
She breathed and swallowed at the same time, the cheese lodged in the back of her mouth, and her eyes watered. She was not choking to death on a cheese stick in front of Elliott fucking Swift. No, sir-ee. That was not how her story ended. Not today, anyway.
She took a huge swig of her drink, hoping it would push down both the wad of cheese stuck in her esophagus and the mortification of him finding her alone in a bar, eating said cheese and reading smut.
“Clare?”
When she turned to face him she was almost touched by the concern wrinkling his brow.
“Is there anyone sitting here?”
Oh. Yes. He’d asked a question and was standing awkwardly, waiting for an invitation to sit. Oh God, he wanted to join her, maybe even to talk. She swallowed. How could she get out of it?
She couldn’t talk to him, stare at him, sit near him because she’d want todothings to him,withhim. Things like rake her teeth along his jaw, or run her fingers over every damn inch of him like he was hers to touch.
Dear God above, did she ever want to smell him?
Only a little sniff. Just to see if her memory of him was accurate. She could slide her fingers into the hair at his nape and tug so his head jerked back giving her space to smush her face into the side of his neck and breathe deep.
Yeah, she’d made it weird, and she needed to get the fuck out of there before she acted on the impulses brewing underneath her skin.
She could try to make up an imaginary friend, but the picture of her reading in a bar alone or chatting to the bartender didn’t lend itself to her being with someone. Fall off her stool? Nope. He’d rush to her aid and make sure she got home safely.
Fuck sticks. She was trapped.
She pointed at the stool next to her with her book. “You can sit.”
“Thanks.” He asked the bartender for a Sam Adams and slid onto the seat beside her. Their biceps touched. Just a couple of inches of skin sitting close enough together to feel his warmth through her shirt, but it was enough.
