‘Oooh, you mean that sexy womaniser you had as a suspect? I remember him.’ She tapped her lips with the candy cane, a far-off look in her eyes. ‘He wasgooood.’
Handsome-as-sin menweregood in fiction, especially when you could engineer embarrassing fates for them. I’d spent far too much of my youth pining after the best-looking boys in school, waiting for them to notice chubby, freckly, bookish me and when one finally did, nothing good came of it. I’d learnt my lesson about men who’d been disproportionately gifted in the looks department – they were generally lacking in the morals department as a result. I limited my contact with handsome men to admiring from afar these days. I hadn’t been out with a Type A, as my family would refer to them, for many a moon.
I shrugged. ‘He was fun to write.’
‘I’ll bet.’ She bit her tongue gently and then gave me a grin full of mischief. ‘Why don’t you bring him back?’
‘How is that gonna help me get Kit and Charmaine to their happy-ever-after?’ I shook my head and took a big swallow of the cocktail. The richness of the cream made the blast of mint sneak up on me. It was like having my brain blow-dried. ‘I can’t switch her love interest to James. That would be a really disappointing turn of events for the readers who are actually following my series and rooting for Kitmaine.’
‘I know. I’m not suggesting that. But maybe the rival would help up the tension? Perhaps then Kit can put in a bit more effort, show her that he’s not what she thinks. Like, err…Sandy inGrease.’
‘He should put on some black stretchy pants, smoke some cigarettes and perm his hair?’
She giggled. ‘Metaphoricallyspeaking, yeah.’
‘I guess it’s an idea,’ I said grudgingly. ‘I’m really not sure I want to reintroduce James though. Or maybe I just don’t want to redo anything. Maybe I don’t want tobea writer anymore. It’s too hard.’ She outright laughed at me when I said that, which was fair because there was no way I could ever be anything but a writer. ‘Where do I start, Kay? Help me, please,’ I whimpered and rested my chin on my hand.
‘You need a hero, little lady?’ a male voice drawled near my shoulder. I slanted my eyes to the side and sighed.
‘Wow. That didn’t take long,’ I muttered.
‘For God to answer your prayer and send me?’ A stocky man with cropped hair, sun-bleached at the tips, took up the space between me and Kaylee. I’d learnt enough from my dad about reading people to be able to tell immediately from his dominant body language and over-groomed appearance that this man was the nightmare jock Kaylee had been talking about. If misogyny wasn’t his middle name, narcissism probably would be.
‘For two women enjoying a night out to have it interrupted by a man,’ I corrected him.
‘You didn’t sound like you were enjoying it.’
‘And yet, I was still having more fun than now.’
‘Well ain’t you sassy.’ He looked down at me and puffed out his chest. ‘Or should I say nasty.’
I widened my eyes and looked at Kaylee, imploring her to intervene before I stabbed him with my candy cane.
‘Look, we’re not interested in anyone joining us, okay? I’m sure any other time you’d be great company,’ she blatantly lied, ‘but we came here to have a quiet chat about some work issues. That’s it.’
‘So, you’re saying that on another night, you might like to hook up?’ All his attention was on her now and I felt bad for putting her in the firing line. This was the problem with letting men like him down softly. This was also the problem with relying on fate to manoeuvre you into the path of the man of your dreams; you had to find your way past all the chauvinists first.
I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention back again. ‘We’resaying: no thanks, leave us alone.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’ He turned to me so abruptly I recoiled and would’ve toppled off my stool but for a firm, warm hand pressing into the middle of my back. Just long enough to for me to regain my balance but not long enough for me to pull away in horror at some perv touching me. It wasn’t pervy, just helpful, and said hand immediately moved from preventing my fall to blocking the gaze of the rabid jock by resting on the table in front of me. My defender was clad in a pale blue shirt, only the back of his dark head and a sliver of jaw visible from the way he was standing in front of me.
‘Logan, let’s leave these women to their drinks. My food’s arrived and I haven’t said hello to anyone else from work yet.’ His accent was British, his voice smoother than Manuka honey and…familiar.
I craned my head around on an angle like a demented owl, trying to see his face. It couldn’t be…
Logan set his jaw. ‘I was getting somewhere with—’
‘No. You really weren’t.’ Mystery British Guy interrupted Logan and clapped him on the shoulder in a way that loaned good nature to the contradiction. Here was someone who knew how to manage people. He was the taller of the two and although not beefy, he held himself so straight, so poised, he radiated confidence, but I could sense tension there too – and no wonder as he was challenging his meat-headed friend in front of us. If theywerefriends… They struck me as an odd couple to be out on the prowl with each other.
Logan shrugged him off but moved away to the bar in a sulk, without another word to us. Mystery British Guy watched him go and threw a brief glance and an apology in our direction as he started to move away. ‘Sorry about my colleague’s behaviour. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.’ Clearly, we’d taken up too much of his time already.
He disappeared into the crowd of customers waiting at the bar before I got a chance to see his face properly, but my heart was skipping along. God, I really, really thought it might be him…
‘That was a shame,’ Kaylee commented.
‘Huh?’ I stopped craning my neck to see over the crowd and gave her back my attention. ‘The unpleasant interruption?’
‘Yeah, but also that the cute British guy didn’t stick around.’ She folded her arms on the table and leaned closer to me. ‘You liked him, right?’
