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“That’s what we’re here for,” I reply graciously, sweeping my hands out in front of me and reclaiming my seat beside Claire. She looks mildly annoyed that I’m not only paying attention, but also making fantastic suggestions.
She starts picking apart her muffin as a conversation about merchandise and event-planning picks up steam. Red jam oozes from the middle and I’m absolutely engrossed as she shoves a piece in her mouth, her tongue sweeping across her bottom lip to swipe at a drop of jam.
I reach over and break off a chunk, throwing it in my mouth. Strawberry. Why am I not surprised?
Claire leans into me, all squinty-eyed. “You know no boundaries, do you?”
“Aren’t we past boundaries, little Miss Strawberry?”
Her cheeks flush with heat. “Oh my God,” she breathes angrily. “You’re infuriating.” Picking up her pen, she starts turning it in her fingers, as if she needs anything to do to distract from the fact that I’m sitting here beside her, annoying the hell out of her.
So I take that too, plucking it right from her grasp, sliding the top of it between my teeth and leaning back in my chair to smile at her. I might wag my eyebrows too. She looks like she’s either going to blow a gasket or back me up against a wall and shove her tongue down my throat. Teasing her is entirely too easy and way too much fun.
Huffing, she pins her arms over her chest—which looks absolutely fantastic in that skin-tight tee, by the way. “You’re ruining my Monday morning.”
“Really? ’Cause you’re making mine a hundred times better.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. She’s doing a piss-poor job of hiding that smile.
“I’ve been thinking about you all weekend,” I tell her in a hushed voice, twisting closer to her in my chair.
Her eyes shift to sideways to meet mine. “You have not.”
“I have, I promise you.” Leaning in obnoxiously close, I flip through the pages in her journal, pretending like we’re talking about something to do with the brewery. It’s filled with notes and a lot of doodles. It makes me smile. Absently, I scroll my name across a page. Then hers. Might add a plus sign in between the two and circle it with a heart. “Been thinking about how delicious you taste, how you feel under my fingers…Are you telling me you haven’t thought about me once since you rode away from me on Friday night?”
Her breath stutters, heat radiating off her face like a furnace. Her lashes flutter and her lips part. She uncrosses and crosses her legs. She’s an open book, terrible at hiding her feelings. “I…Avery…”
“Yes, Claire?”
A sudden and swift kick to my shin sends me folding forward over the table, my hand clutching tightly at Claire’s. I flip Wyatt the bird, because he’s the obvious culprit.
“Would you two shut the hell up or take this outside and screw already?” he seethes quietly, jerking his head toward the front of the room where Dex’s gaze flickers between the three of us.
Claire rips her hand out from under mine, burying her red face in her hands. She’s adorable.
“Rein yourself in, Beck,” Wyatt begs. “Like, ten more minutes, that’s all I’m asking. Then you two can go back to whatever the hell this is.” He circles a hand around our general vicinity.
“What it is, is nothing,” Claire insists on a hiss.
Wyatt snorts. “Yeah, okay. We may have just met, beautiful Claire, but I’m not blind.”
“Right?” I whisper-yell. “Thanks, man.”
“Seriously? I’m gonna punch both of you in the face!” She jabs an angry finger into my shoulder and shoots Wyatt a fierce scowl. Quiet, angry Claire is the best Claire. She stands abruptly and gives Dex a tight-lipped smile. “I’m so sorry, Dex. I’ll be right back. Just need to use the bathroom.”
I watch her leave, those hips of hers bouncing back and forth, and as soon as the thought starts rolling through my head, Wyatt speaks it and shuts it right down.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re not following her.”
I grumble to myself but then spy her cell sitting next to her laptop, and—would you look at that—it’s not password protected. Typical. So I do the only logical thing: add my contact and then call myself from her phone so that I have her number too. Tucking it back beside her laptop, I give Claire a smile as she slips back into the room, and then do as Wyatt requested: I rein myself in.
For the next twenty minutes, I listen and participate actively in the discussion and pretend that the most fascinating girl I’ve ever met isn’t sitting beside me. I like when Claire talks, because it gives me a reason to be absolutely enthralled with her without getting my ass handed to me by Wyatt or any weird looks from Dex. She flips through a color-coded binder, offering up tidbits of information about the contractors she’s been in touch with so far.
But when the meeting is over, she’s the first out of the room, scooping up her belongings and dashing down the hallway like the room is on fire and we’re all going down.
Dex takes Wyatt and I on a tour of the facility and we get a firsthand look at the space on the second floor for the proposed restaurant. One wall is floor-to-ceiling window views of the Toronto Harbour.
“It’s going to be amazing,” I tell him honestly, tucking my hands in my pockets as we head back up to the third floor and disappear into his office. “You’re going to absolutely explode here when this takes off. You ready for that?” I sink into an oversized leather couch under one of the many windows.
