AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, no.
This was what she got for meeting up with a rando from a dating app. It wasn’t Olivia’s first time meeting with an online match, but it was her first time agreeing to dinner with someone whom she hadn’t properly screened. Usually, it took more than a day of messaging back and forth before she took things to the next level, but she’d needed to blow off steam after a grueling first year in her MBA program and an equally grueling summer dealing with her jerk-face colleagues.
Okay, fine, her last final had been five days ago, and she’d only worked with said jerk-faces for two days, but still. Olivia deserved hazard pay for dealing with their immature, sexist asses. People thought Wall Street in New York was bad? They never met the San Francisco branch of Pine Hill Capital, the prestigious private equity (PE) firm Olivia had worked for since she jumped ship from investment banking five years ago.
“Wesley, sit,” Olivia ordered, unconsciously using the same tone she used on dogs.
“I never finished showing you my moves earlier.”
“I don’t want to see your moves.” Olivia flashed a tight smile of thanks at the server, who returned with their ice cream and shot a strange look in Wesley’s direction but didn’t say anything.
The top two buttons of Wesley’s shirt were unbuttoned, revealing a sliver of muscled chest and spray-tanned skin. He wasn’t bad-looking, but if he didn’t sit down in the next two minutes, she couldn’t be held accountable for where she might lodge her shoe.
Olivia scooted her chair closer to the table so he couldn’t climb into her lap again. She spooned some ice cream into her mouth and—Oh. My. God.
All thoughts of sticking her heel where the sun didn’t shine flew out of her head as she focused on the cold, creamy mound of heaven in her bowl. It wasamazing.Definitely worth thirty minutes of her life, but once she finished dessert, she was hightailing it out of here—Wesley could take care of the bill—and she’d never have to see him again.
Olivia wondered if she could eat Wesley’s portion of dessert, too. The poor ice cream was melting, and he didn’t seem like he would stop “showing off his moves” anytime soon. Saving that perfectly flavored scoop from dying a useless death was practically a moral imperative.
“Olivia, look,” Wesley said, sounding suspiciously whiney for a twenty-nine-year-old. “You’re not looking. This is my booty pop. Women love it.”
Someone kill me now.
At least they were in the back corner of the restaurant, away from the kitchen and most other guests. The nearest diners—a handsome couple in their mid-forties—shot Olivia and Wesley the same strange look their server had earlier, but Wesley hadn’t done anythingtooegregious yet, like take his shirt off. The couple soon got distracted by their food, while Wesley booty-popped to his heart’s content.
“Sit. Down,” Olivia repeated.
He didn’t.
Fuck it.She finished her ice cream and swapped her empty bowl with Wesley’s full one. He didn’t deserve dessert.
“I can’t believe you don’t like my moves,” Wesley slurred, sounding offended. He sidled closer, and she realized he’d unbuttoned several more buttons until half his chest was showing. If a restaurant staff member saw him, he’d be thrown out for public indecency. “I’m the star of The Cock Pit. Womenspecificallyrequest me for their bachelorette parties. I make over a thousand dollars a night. I can squeeze a penny with my—”
Olivia never found out what he could squeeze a penny with—thank God—because she chose that moment to turn her head to the left. Just a few inches, really, until she could see over Wesley’s shoulder. In the grand scheme of things, the small movement was nothing.
Or itwould’vebeen nothing, had her gaze not collided with a pair of familiar onyx eyes that sucked her in like a black hole. Nothing escaped—not light, not sound, not the painful beats of her heart. Just like that, everything disappeared except for the man her younger, naïve self had thought held her universe in the palms of his hands. Even Wesley ceased to exist, and he was practically on top of her.
Olivia’s breath rushed out in a shaky gust of exhilaration, embarrassment, and loathing.
“Olivia?” Her name fell off Sammy Yu’s perfect lips like a long-forgotten love song, evoking memories of golden days and beautiful nights.
Those dark eyes darted from her spoonful of ice cream—frozen halfway to her mouth—to Wesley’s bared chest before finally resting on her face. She spotted glints of confusion and amusement, and it was the latter that fueled her with the strength to level a glare at Wesley so menacing he immediately backed off.
“I’m going to the restroom,” Wesley announced, indignation oozing from every pore. “It’s clear my booty pops are not appreciated here.”
He stalked off, his half-open shirt flapping in the breeze. He didn’t spare Sammy a glance.
Sammy’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t aware booty pops were on the menu.”
“Funny. We—Iwas just leaving,” Olivia said with as much dignity as she could muster. She set her spoon down. The ice cream had melted anyway, and there was none left in the bowl. She could bolt right now while Wesley was in the restroom.
Usually, Olivia would never do something so rude, but she was fed up with this day. It kept going from bad to worse—and running into your ex-boyfriend while on a terrible date definitely counted as “worse.”
“You mean you don’t want to go home with that fine, booty-popping specimen?” Sammy feigned shock. “Say it ain’t so.”
She glared at him. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
The Sammy she knew wasn’t sarcastic unless it was in a fun, playful way, but the man standing before herwasn’tthe Sammy she knew.
