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Gritting my teeth, I blink twice, trying to swallow back the words I’d like to say to him.
“Let me know if you change your mind about that beer,” I say again, but this time, my words come out slow and steady, with a fair hint of a warning.
Then, because I’ve never been able to help myself when it comes to putting assholes in their place, I step closer to his table and plant my hands along the edge, dipping low so my voice doesn’t carry across the room.
“But call me a fucking cheerleader or talk about my ass again, and I’ll toss you out on your ass so fast you’ll wish you’d learned to bite that tongue.”
His eyes flare, anger bringing the copper color to light. But then they dip, dropping to my mouth with a brevity so swift I almost miss it.
I stand quickly, pushing myself up from his table and spinning to walk away with my shoulders back and my head high, eager to get away from the disconcerting things those copper eyes make me feel deep in my belly.
And yeah, I might sashay my ass as I go, but I don’t dare give him the satisfaction of looking back to see if he’s watching.
The rest of the night passes by pretty quickly, though I can’t help but keep an eye on Colton’s table until he disappears at some point toward the end of my shift. The man never looked my way again after our little tête-à-tête, which was for the best because there was a part of me that was just waiting for him to say some other bullshit again.
Fucking cheerleader.
Where the hell does he get off thinking he can talk to someone that way?
I’m a nurturer by nature, so it makes sense that a portion of my soul sympathizes with Colton and the emotional rollercoaster he’s likely been on over the past few months since his wife died. I can only imagine the kind of deep valleys of anger and sadness and grief he’s had to wade through.
But I’m also a Sagittarius, and we’re not known for mincing words. If he’d said something else to me tonight, I can’t guarantee I would have continued to be as nice as I was the first time he opened his stupid mouth.
Before I know it, I’m closing out and bidding Soren and Coral a farewell for the evening. I stop in the back for a brief moment to tug off my work top, chuck my apron in the laundry, and grab my purse, then I’m pushing into the cool, salty air of a spring night in Sandalwood.
The one nice thing about high-jacking Leighton’s couch and working at The Lighthouse is that it’s only a five-minute walk up the hill to her apartment, a convenience that has allowed me to forgo filling up my gas tank for a few weeks. And man does the uphill hike work the muscles in my ass.
Of course, thinking about my ass makes me reflect, once again, on Colton Palmer, though this time it’s about the way his eyes dipped to look at my lips.
Part of me thinks I was imagining things. Thinks maybe I wanted to see Colton eye me that way so I created it in my mind.
But the almost startled expression he wore mixed with that anger that’s written all over his skin—almost like he was pissed at me for the fact that he’d looked at my lips in the first place…well, that definitely wasn’t a fake.
Colton might be attractive even when he’s angry, but that kind of shit doesn’t fly anymore. Being angry and broody doesn’t make you sexy. It makes you an asshole with unresolved issues that should really be handled by a therapist.
After the things I witnessed growing up, I know without a shadow of a doubt that an angry man with a heaping load of baggage is not the place for me to set my sights.
***
I’m bouncing up and down in my sock-covered feet in Leighton’s kitchen the following week as I dial Jorrine’s number. The email she sent sounded positive enough, like she might have a potential job for me doing something other than wiping down tables and popping tops off of bottles.
Though I guess, as a nanny, I’d be doing a lot of that, too. Just for a very different clientele.
“Jorrine Wright.”
“Hi! Jorrine, it’s Emily Burns,” I say, trying to keep the nearly shrill level of excitement out of my voice. “You emailed me, said to give you a call.”
“Yes, Emily, hi!” she says back.
Positive. Definitely positive.
“I think I have a possible job for you nannying a three-year-old.”
I chew nervously on the inside of my cheek and close my eyes, waiting for her to deliver the final blow.
“And where does the family live?”
“Sandalwood!” she says, laughing.
