Page 6 of The Cubby Hole

Jim chuckled. “Not a lot of saints at Bear Camp.” He looked over his shoulder at Ryan, teetering on the ladder. “Oh, honey, those clouds are not even level! Hold on just a second!” Jim rolled his eyes and excused himself.

Austin twisted a bar rag almost demurely. “I gotta say, I kinda like a nice guy every once in a while.”

“As a palette cleanser?” I deadpanned.

“Right!” Austin grinned like the devil. “No, seriously. The real ones are rare but special.” He cut his eyes to Ben, who was arranging drink coasters in a straight line on the bar.

I elbowed Ben to see if he was even following the conversation. “Maybe we should introduce Austin to Paul.”

Ben pulled a face as if to say it wasn’t a terrible idea.

“Who’s that?” Austin asked.

“Friend of ours. Ben’s done a lot of work on his house. He’s a professor.”

“Oooh,” Austin purred. “A professor.”

“He’s our age.”

Austin shrugged. “I like older men.”

I held up a finger. “Be very careful what you say next.”

Austin giggled. “Is he hot?”

“Very handsome.” I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “And he doesn’t know it. Doesn’t believe it, anyway.”

“Oh.” Austin nodded knowingly, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “Even hotter.”

“He’s a little more…” I looked to Ben for a contribution, but he was pretending to ignore the conversation. “I don’t want to say conservative. Reserved, maybe.”

“Like this one?” Austin teased.

Ben remained seemingly oblivious. He definitely wasn’t taking any of Austin’s bait.

“Paul just needs to get his groove back.”

Ben sighed irritably and finally spoke. “He hates it when you say that. It’s cheesy.”

“Well, I can’t think of a better shorthand.” I waved dismissively. “He’s been single for a little too long.” I turned my attention back to Austin. “Anyway. We finally convinced him to come this weekend. He’s never been before.”

Austin cocked his head. “You guys are throwing him in the deep end, huh?”

I winced. “Hopefully in a good way. The campground’s a little more welcoming a scene than most.”

Austin waggled his eyebrows. “Making men feel welcome is my specialty.” He told us to flag him down when we were ready for another round and went back to helping the others.

I watched Austin walk away. Fuck, he was eye candy in anybody’s book. I expected to find Ben drooling after him too, but he was intently watching me instead.

I flushed, not because Ben had busted me checking out Austin—we scoped out cute guys together all the time—but because Ben’s pretty blues were trained on me again.

I definitely wasn’t imagining it.

My pulse kicked up, some alarm going off in my body. “What?”

Ben shrugged.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”