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No, I thought, as my gaze quickly moved past the rocker, I preferred them clean cut. Harris had always been a little obsessed keeping his hair short and neat. I knew it was because his dad’s hair had always been long. The two could have passed for twins at a distance and that irritated Harris in the extreme. His short hair set them apart and that’s the way he wanted it to stay.
Unlike the guy sitting next to him, Harris was dressed a little more professionally in a pair of dress pants and a dark blue button-up shirt that was only half buttoned. When I caught a glimpse of hard, yummy muscles peeking through his half opened shirt I quickly averted my eyes. Damn, damn, and double damn. I did not need a reminder that what I felt for Harris Cutter was completely different than what it had once been. This went beyond friendship, and it went a hell of a lot further than a simple crush.
If it had been just a crush I might have even been able to get past it and get our friendship back. It wasn’t, though. This was full-on hardcore lust mixed with something that I didn’t have the guts to put a name to. That was why I couldn’t give in. It would only end in a very ugly disaster.
Kin was less than three feet away from them when Jace lifted his head and met her gaze. She faltered for a half a step then that evil grin turned shy and mysterious. That grin scared me even more than the evil one. Oh damn. What was she up to?
Jace’s eyes seemed to eat up the sight of her. The look on his face was familiar to me since I saw it every day when my dad looked at my mom. The rocker was in love with my friend, which only confused the hell out of me. If he loved her so much, why the fuck had he left her when she’d needed him the most?
Guys were such dumbass dickheads sometimes.
While Jace was devouring Kin with his eyes, she was looking past him, completely ignoring him. She leaned against the bar, her hips popped out and her boobs front and center as she spoke to Harris. Jace’s face turned to stone more and more the longer the other two talked.
After a few minutes, Kin nodded her head toward me and Harris’s aquamarine eyes turned in my direction. I quickly looked away, not wanting to get trapped with his gaze. I picked up my phone and started going through messages and notifications so that I at least looked like I was distracted.
Kin was back sooner than I thought she would be. She dropped down into the chair beside me. When the chair on my left was pulled back, my head jerked up and I was helpless to look away this time. Harris had a smug-ass grin on his face and I had to clench my hands together to keep from smacking it off his face. Crap-tastic.
“Why haven’t you answered my messages?” he asked as a way of greeting, scooting his chair as close to mine as possible. “I figured I would have at least gotten a ‘fuck you’ or a ‘go to hell’. Instead all I get is nothing. I’d rather have the ‘fuck you’, Lu.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “I haven’t gotten any messages from you.” I would have remembered that. I would have answered with a ‘go fuck yourself’ rather than the two he’d suggested. I was a little more direct than that. If I’d told him ‘fuck you’ I would have just been stating what I wanted from him, not really insulting him. Yeah, I wasn’t going to go tempting myself any more than I already was.
“The hell you say. I’ve been texting you since Sunday night.” He pulled his phone from his pants pocket and pulled up his messages. The text name was mine, and there was one message after another on the screen with not one single reply. I snatched the phone from his hands and went straight to the information. A grin teased at my lips when I saw the number that he’d said my mom had given him.
“What’s going on?” Kin asked, leaning over my shoulder to glance at the screen. “That’s not your number.” She frowned. “Lucy, really, why would you wrong number the guy?”
“I didn’t,” I snickered. “Mom did.”
Harris snatched his phone back with a curse. “Layla wrong numbered me?” His face dropped; hurt flashing in his eyes for a split second before it vanished. “I thought she liked me.”
“Oh, stop it. Mom loves you.” I picked up my ginger ale and took a small sip. “She just loves me more.”
“So give me your real number.” He held out the phone again. “Let me send you stupid messages that you can actually read and ignore, or—and this is my preference by the way—actually talk to me.”
Before I could respond, the last free chair at our table was jerked back and Jace St. Charles sat down. His shoulders were ridged, his face set in stone and his ice blue eyes drill holes into Kin. “Are you really going to play games with me, Kin?” he gritted out. “I thought you were more mature than that.”
Bright blue eyes snapped up. “Go to hell, Jace.”
“So, your number?” Harris waved his phone in my face, momentarily distracting me from the drama that was taking place right beside me. “Come on, Lu. You know you want to. You can call and keep me up all night any time you want. I won’t mind.” He winked and leaned a few inches closer. “Admit it, sweetheart, you miss me.”
My heart shuddered in my chest and I lowered my eyes to the phone in his hand so he wouldn’t see the truth in my eyes. I missed him like an amputated limb. He was the missing piece of the puzzle that was my sanity, yet he was also the piece of the puzzle that could shatter my heart. Damn it.
I could feel myself caving as I inhaled and the scent that I remembered so clearly as belonging to him—a little woodsy, a little spicy, and one hundred percent Harris Cutter—invaded my senses. Before my heart and head could wrap around what I was doing, I had snatched his phone back and started punching in my number.
He was quick to take it back once I was finished. He typed something and seconds later my phone chimed with an incoming message. Rolling my eyes, I picked up the phone and saw his number across the screen. Say cheese!
I barely had time to read the message when I heard his phone clicking as he snapped a picture of me. I shoved his shoulder. “Pig. Erase it. No way are you using something stupid like that.”
He chuckled as he did something to his phone then grabbed my hand and tugged. I didn’t want to go, but his hold tightened and I rolled my eyes again. Getting to my feet, I expected him to stand up too so that we could take a picture together. Instead he pulled me down onto his lap and tucked me closer to his chest. My heartrate took off at the speed of a bullet train. His scent was richer this close to him. My back was pressed into a hard, hot chest and I couldn’t relax. Not when my thighs were starting to burn with something I’d only read about in all the romance books that had become my secret addiction. This feeling was pure, unadulterated lust, made all the worse because it was my first time of truly experiencing it.
“Relax, I’m not going to bite you.” Harris’s warm breath skimmed over my neck seconds before his lips skimmed over my cheek. I felt my face turning red with a mixture of embarrassment and a need I wasn’t sure I completely understood just as the sound of the camera on his phone snapped our picture.
I caught a glimpse of my over-bright eyes and his smug grin before he moved it away, examining the picture better. I had to admit that it looked good. Despite my blush and lust-filled eyes, I looked good. We looked good together.
“Okay, your turn.” He leaned forward and picked up my phone lying next to my glass of soda. “What do you want? Goofy? Serious? We can send one to your dad where Marcus is strangling me in the b
ackground. Jesse will love that.”
My heart twisted as I watched his face while he messed around on my phone. This right here—this felt like old times. This happy feeling blooming in my chest, the small snicker bubbling up at the thought of what my dad would say about getting a selfie from me with my bodyguard strangling Harris in the background… This was what I’d missed the most.
