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I paused in unraveling my scarf around my neck. I breathed through my nose, and raised my coffee to my mouth so that my face was partially hidden. Okay, that really bothered me. Carla and Sean? Nope. That was not cool. “He’s kind of old for you,” I said, striving for casual. “And he’s your boss.”
“No, he isn’t. I’m front of the house, so Nico is my boss.” She raised her eyebrows up and down. “Besides, I could find another job serving if it got really hot between us.”
Wow, she had this all figured out. “Hmm. I guess so.” What else could I say? I couldn’t exactly tell her she should never put a man before her job when I had Chef balls deep in me the night before.
“How old do you think he is?” she asked. “Thirty? That’s not too old. I’m twenty-three.”
I had no opinion on age gaps in dating except when it was someone trying to steal a guy from me I didn’t want. Riddle that one out. “He’s not thirty. He’s at least thirty-five.” I didn’t know exactly but I did know that Michael was forty-three and Sean was his younger brother, so I thought I was in the ballpark. Besides, he didn’t look young. He had a maturity to the way he looked. No baby face anywhere. Just a rough, masculine, fully adult male. “Maybe Sean’s even forty.”
Slapping my coffee down on the prep table I yanked my scarf off and squeezed it, hard, wishing like hell I wasn’t picturing him over me the night before.
“You think I’m forty?”
I jumped and whirled around to see Sean standing there, looking amused. And maybe slightly pissed.
“Holy shit, you scared me. What are you doing here so early?”
Carla disappeared promptly, her cheeks pink. She was probably wondering exactly how much of our conversation he had heard. I was wondering the same.
“Nico called me. Sarah can’t come in today. She has the flu. He thought you might need an extra hand.”
“He could have asked me first before dragging you in here.” I was a little insulted.
“You’re right. He could have.” Sean pulled his sweatshirt off over his head, causing the T-shirt underneath to rise up, exposing his rock-solid abs.
My mouth went dry. I reached for my coffee again.
“I’m thirty-five,” he said. “I’m struggling not to be offended that you think I’m forty. You said it like I’m ancient.”
Well, this was grumpiness on top of awkwardness on top of sexual tension. Carla wasn’t the only one with flushed cheeks. “You missed what I said before that. I said you were probably thirty-five. I added forty because I was trying to make you look less desirable to someone that young.”
“Why? Afraid she’s into me?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to rat out Carla. She might only want to date him theoretically, not in actuality. “I don’t want her to have regrets.”
Sean stared at me. He shifted closer to me, studying me so intently I fought the urge to take a step back. “Do you have regrets?” he murmured.
I didn’t even know how to answer that. I did, and I didn’t. My feelings were jumbled. “You don’t have to stay if you had plans for this morning. I can handle the lunch crowd. We’re not that busy on Thursdays.”
“I’m already here. I might as well stay.” He gave me a smile. “You look pretty today. You look good without makeup.”
With that, he went into the break room and I was left standing there hating myself for being pleased by his compliment. Since when did I get giddy over a casual comment on my appearance? My head throbbed even harder.
I went to see if Courtney had that Bloody Mary ready for me yet.
There had been no real reason to come to Bone. Sarah being sick had been an afterthought from Nico on our phone call. We’d been discussing the BBQ competition. But I had offered to come in because I wanted to see Isla. She had forgone her recent fashion choices for loose overalls and boots. Her hair was piled in a bun on top of her head and I thought it was amazing how she could pull both looks off so easily. I also thought it was amazing that she could work three feet away from me and look completely unaffected by the fact we’d had sex the night before.
I was amazing at casual sex. I could write a fucking manual on it. I could literally have my cock in a woman and then an hour later return to being just friends. Not in an asshole way, just that I was fantastic at living in the moment and never having regrets. It wasn’t even about holding myself remote. I just didn’t get emotionally connected that way.
So to have sex and then work side by side with a woman should not be a struggle. At all. In my twenties I had done it all the time.
Yet, there I was, sneaking glances at Isla every chance I got. Our parting had been less than perfect. She had been eye rolling the hell out of me. I had said stupid shit. She’d called me out on it. I hadn’t meant to be an insensitive prick but it had honestly scared the hell out of me how into her I had felt.
It was just sex.
That’s what I had been telling myself every waking moment since.
Sex that I couldn’t get out of my head.
