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Dakota blinks at him and then bursts out laughing.
I shake my head like it weighs a hundred pounds.
He’s always had a way with words.
“Dakota wouldn’t know good coffee. She likes her lattes sweet enough to kill and loaded with cinnamon or salted caramel,” I grind out.
Predictably, Nevermore glares, but ignores my crap.
“Eliza hits the jackpot sometimes with her stuff. The rest could use some work, but I mean, that’s part of the process. Darker roasts aren’t her strong suit. I think she’s been working on that, though.” Dakota fingers the corner of her lip, deep in thought.
I hate how adorable she is.
But not nearly as much as I fucking loathe the angry ache she puts in my balls. Why did she have to crack a joke about beating off with my right hand again?
I haven’t jacked off in ages, but tonight, it might be the only way I’ll ever get to sleep with her up in my head.
“How would you know anything about dark roasts? I’ve gotten your coffee order before. It’s milk and sugar with a splash of coffee thrown in.”
“Shut up,” she says, rolling her eyes to the moon.
“Creative. Remind me why I hired you to write copy again?” I know I’m being an asshole.
I’m taking out everything Wyatt stirred up on her, and if I have any sense, I should sew my yap shut.
“Um, apparently so you could make me pull double duty as your assistant while your real one went on maternity leave?” she throws back with the usual venom.
That shouldn’t make me smile. I hide it behind my coffee cup as I take another long pull off the drink.
“You got a boyfriend?” Wyatt asks, reloading his cup with more coffee.
Dakota looks at me just as I swallow.
She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes are bright. Nervous.
They make me wonder why.
“Wyatt, she’s out of your league,” I say numbly. “Stick to girls who like to garden and can put up with your shit.”
Wyatt chuckles and gulps his coffee. “Relax. I wasn’t asking for myself.”
“Wyatt.” The look I throw his way could flay him open.
He holds a hand up.
“Hey, no harm, no foul. Just askin’.” He looks at Dakota. “You want a story before I hit the hay? Oh five hundred will be here soon enough.”
“When was the last time you were up at oh five hundred?” I ask.
“Tomorrow. Busy day.”
I stare at him, glowering, wondering what sort of story he’s about to tell.
“Hell if I know, Burns. But your girl doesn’t want to hang out all night in front of my tent, so take her home after this.” He stops and takes a deep breath, holding his hands in front of the fire like the drama queen he is. “Okay. So, I moved around a lot as a kid, and I lived a year or two in this little mountain town called Heart’s Edge. They had this spooky old mine everybody always said was haunted, so one time me and my friends went exploring, not knowing these weird military contractor guys were setting up shop—”
“She’s not my girl—keep your facts straight,” I interject. “That goes for your damn ghost story, too.”
“I’m really not,” Dakota adds with a glassy look. “I just work for him.”
She rips her eyes away from me.
Damn. Why does she look hurt?
“But you aren’t working now and you’re having a good time. You laugh a lot and you smile real pretty,” Wyatt tells her, always the charmer.
She doesn’t deny it, just gives back a friendly smile.
“Where are your friends, anyway? If you’re not his girl, you must have more fun with them than your worn-out old boss who can’t handle his tail being pulled.” Wyatt gives me a shameless grin.
I’m so close to decking him square in the face tonight.
So close.
Dakota shrugs. “Eh, I haven’t been here that long. I’ve kept my head down, mostly. Eliza’s really the only new friend I’ve made.”
“Where you from?” Wyatt asks.
“Dallas, North Dakota,” I answer for her. “Odd little place that’s barely on the map like your mountain town. They’ve got a lot of oil, movie stars settling down, and even the occasional tiger.”
“So you were listening when I told you about it.” Dakota looks at me and smiles, raising her brow.
I snort, but wonder if I’m digging my hole deeper. She shouldn’t look so impressed that I listen to her.
“How long have you been here?” Wyatt asks, a question I don’t know the answer to.
“About eight months come June,” she answers.
“You should have made more than one friend by now,” I say, sipping my coffee. “What, no poet groups worth their salt around here?”
“I’m a working writer. You’d be surprised how hard it is to relate to the self-appointed starving artists who relish their part-time jobs and rolling out of bed at noon every day to hack at a few words. Also, I really like the girls I work with, but I haven’t been at Haughty But Nice long enough to socialize a ton. At my old job, no one really talked to anyone. And if they did, it was because they were trying to cut you down. A real crab-in-bucket place. I like Anna and Cheryl but we work a lot. There isn’t much time to hang out.”
