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“What do you want? I’m busy.”
His smirk straightens into his patented semi-pout. “Come on, Zizi. I finished things with Kirst.” He gives me another loaded once-over. “Wanna come over some time?”
I grind my teeth as I wait for his gaze to slither its way back up to my face.
He reads it well, I’ll give him that.
The click of his tongue and lift of his chin pre-emps a look I happen to know he practices in the bathroom mirror. Clenched jaw, slightly narrowed eyes. It’s a good look—if you’re a Calvin Klein underwear model. “Come on, Zi.”
“I’m leaving now.” I roll my eyes and turn back to the beach. “Goodbye, Daz.”
The sand-strewn walkway stretches out before me, heat rising in warped rays from the stone. I force myself to keep moving, trying valiantly to find my Zen again when all I really want to do is dive, head-first into the turquoise waves. The sad truth of the matter is that Daz was just the last in a long line of bad decisions—the cherry on top of my disastrous love life. It’s probably the reason that what happened with Mylo stings so damn much. I should have known better. I did know better—okay, I obviously didn’t—but I do now.
I make it to the bar. Just.
Re-doing my ponytail, I push through the swinging doors with my bum.
“Zi, over here,” Rae calls over from where she’s camped out with her laptop at one of the tables inside. A glass of iced coffee in one hand, her mass of auburn hair twisted up and secured with a pen, she closes her computer. A frown creases her forehead when I stop in front of her, and she pushes her black-rimmed glasses onto the top of her head. “What happened? You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“Nothing.” I push a strand of hair from my sweaty face and shrug, avoiding her perceptive hazel gaze as I flop down onto the sofa beside her.
She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “Spill…” The word is drawn out in her strange Scottish/Cluan mix accent. “I know this look on you.”
“I ran into Daz.” I stare at the wood-beamed ceiling. “Him and Kirst split.”
“I know. She caught him mid-fuck with her bestie.” Rae lifts a knee onto the white sofa cushion so she’s facing me, her floral sundress at odds with her worn biker boots. “The man’s a fuck-wit, I don’t care how pretty he is.”
I scrunch my face, then roll my head to the side to look at her. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
“There’s more…” Her eyebrows raise. Rae may be little and pretty, and one of my best friends since her dad moved them here from Scotland when she was fifteen, but she’s also scary smart, covered in tattoos, and has zero filter. Nobody bullshits Rae. They can’t. She has a built-in bullshit detector.
“A guy from the bar got sleazy on my walk home last night.”
“Did ye’ kick his arse?” Any humor in her features evaporates, and the Scottish side of her accent becomes way more pronounced. “Want me to hunt him down?”
“Not the one from the Hawaiian shirt brigade?” Jo appears and hunkers down beside my knee, sliding a tall glass of water and two of Laia’s pie bars from her tray onto the low wicker table. She offers the glass to me before I answer.
“Yeah.” I sit up to take it. “I mean, it’s fine. Nothing happened.”
“I sense abut.” Jo stands, her gaze moving over the customers dotted around the terrace as she talks.
“Myloscared the guy off,” I mutter into the rim of my glass. “He’s back.”
Both girls fix me with ahhhhhhh nods. They don’t know the full Mylo story, but they know enough toahhhhhh.
“Still hot?” Rae asks as she grabs one of the pie bars.
I stare at the table and shake my head in defeat. “He has a beard.”
“Good beard?” Rae pauses before she takes a bite.
“Holy shit. Good beard.” Jo knees the side of my leg. “Incoming.”
My head jerks up. Rae chokes on her pie-bar. All three of us gawp.
Mylo.
“I wish you’d tell us what happened,” Jo whispers, still staring.
