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I froze. “What do you mean?”
“The kiss was a mistake, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to play this game anymore. It’s pathetic, honestly.”
My head tilted to the side. “It’s not pathetic.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Of course, you’d say that. You get to be the nice guy who stops the stupid girl when she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
That’s not what I was doing, was it?
“I’m not some evil mastermind, Sav,” I said. “I have feelings, too.”
She looked at her phone. “I gotta go. I’ll see you at our planned meeting about the reno on Monday.”
“Wait,” I said as she walked past me and down the hallway. I followed behind her, wanting to force her to explain herself until I saw someone familiar at the store’s entrance.
Lucas smiled at Sav and waved. He was dressed nicely in slacks, a button-down shirt, and a tight blazer. My eyes narrowed as I neared them. Lucas opened his arms for a hug, and Sav went right in, hugging him tight like they were close.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yep.” She turned to Jackson. “Thanks for closing up, Grampa.”
He dismissed her thanks with a wave. “Of course.”
Lucas looked over her shoulder and saw me approaching. “Hey, Chris. Sav’s been telling me all about how you’re helping renovate the bookstore.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, we’ve been working together.”
Sav turned to leave. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Lucas smiled sheepishly. “Later, man.”
He put his hand on the small of Sav’s back as they left the bookstore. I wanted to rip his hand off and feed it to him.
I swore I wouldn’t be a dick to her again over some guy’s attention after making an ass out of myself when I thought she was flirting with Dylan, so I stood there, unsure of what to do.
They left the store together, and there was an awkward silence. It felt loud and aggressive.
Jackson broke it. “All that girl does is work and read, and lately it’s been mostly working. She deserves to go out and enjoy herself.”
“Yeah.” I still stared at the front door, like they might be about to come back. “Of course, she does.”
Jackson appeared beside me and took a deep breath. “Seems like you don’t do much but work lately, either. You should go out and have some fun. Maybe the two of you could go together sometime soon. If you had a mind to ask her, that is.” He cleared his throat. “And I suspect you do.”
He walked away before I could find something to say.
14
SAV
“Are you okay?”Lucas asked for the tenth time as we stood in the waiting area of Bernard’s, a fancy French restaurant in the town across the lake from Carswell.
He could tell something was bothering me, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Talking about it meant thinking about it, and I didn’t want that either.
I wanted to remove my brain from my body and place it on a shelf for later, so I could be present and enjoy my evening with a man who didn’t churn up a hundred confusing feelings inside me.
“Yep. I’m fine.” I made a show of looking around the restaurant. The dining room had low lighting and see-through walls separating the sections. The tables were well-spaced apart with white tablecloths. A circular bar sat in the center of the restaurant with multiple nicely dressed bartenders making drink orders.
All the staff looked polished and professional, making me feel like Lucas might have been pulling out all the stops on this first date.
