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My mouth hangs open, and I feel a blush creep into my cheeks. He stands with an almost intimidating confidence, one hand on the back of my stool and eyes smoldering. I don't know whether to be aroused or amused. Probably both.
“You didn't even ask me out yet,” I tell him, shaking my head a little.
“Formalities.” He leans in close, his scruff scratching on my jaw and his lips at my ear. “You and me are fated, Evangeline.”
“Does that line ever work on women?”
He inhales, his lips ghosting along my earlobe. “This is the first time I've ever said it, you tell me.”
Against all rational thought, a smile blooms across my face. I press my tongue behind my teeth, a soft noise escaping my lips. “You're going to have to try harder than that, Casanova.”
He pulls back slowly, hovering far enough for me to read his serious expression. “Challenge accepted, sweetheart.”
12
EVANGELINE
After another mojitofor me and a beer for him, we set out in search of food. I wasn't quite ready to go back to the solitude at the motel. And if I'm being honest with myself, I'm having entirely too much fun with him.
We kept it light in the bar, and when a couple of guys bearing the Reaper patch came over to talk to him, my stomach clenched. I thought he might've brushed me off. Or worse, turned into a different version of himself around his friends. Loud, crass, flipping from that blend of confident and charming to cocky. I've spent enough time around cocky asshole men to last me a lifetime.
But he surprised me. He said hello and introduced me, but it was a polite brush-off at best. A few words and a couple of nods, then turned back to me. We made small talk and played along with the trivia show on the TV behind the bar until my stomach growled.
“How do you feel about pizza?” He holds the door open, gesturing for me to step outside first.
The humidity greets us, wraps its heavy arms around my shoulders as I step onto Main Street. The last of the sun's rays claw for purchase on the pavement between buildings behind us.
He flashes me a grin, skirting behind me to stand on my left, closest to the street.
My lips twist to the side in a rueful sort of smile. “We've had a longstanding love affair. Some might even say it was the first love of my life.”
He tilts his head to the side, his thick dark blond hair falling over his forehead. “I thought every girl's first love is their daddy?”
My stomach clenches at the mention of my dad. Inevitably, it makes me think of my mom. And the fact that outside of one curt voicemail demanding I answer my phone when she calls, I haven't heard from them since I saw them outside the lawyer's office.
That itself isn't that uncommon. I routinely go months without talking to either of my parents. But after seeing them, despite their chilly reception, I had unconsciously planted a seed of hope.
Hope that whatever Nana Jo left Mom would be enough to thaw her out a little, soften her up into something more maternal, more caring.
But hope is a dangerous thing. And I know better than to let it sprout with her name on it.
I blink a few times, chasing away the drab thoughts of my parents.
“By that logic, your mom was your first love.” I pack enough sass that it drips from my words like honey.
“First love?” He taps his bottom lip with his index finger, his face scrunched up like he's concentrating. It's all a ruse, though, his smirk peeking out from behind his hand. “Nah, don't know her.”
I cut him a look, my brows raised high on my forehead. “Wait. You're telling me you've never been in love before?”
He dips his chin, tucking his hands into his front pockets as we stroll down the sidewalk. He looks at me from underneath his long black lashes. “Sure I have. But not the kind you're thinking of.”
I watch him, my mouth parted and a question on the tip of my tongue. And then I get it. “A dog.”
He chuckles, the sound full of mirth. “Nah, we weren't a pet kind of family.”
Camaraderie bubbles underneath my skin, a sense of a shared childhood. “Neither were we. I asked for one every year for my birthday though.” I let out a chuckle, but it's laced with too much self-deprecation to be joyful.
He cuts me look, sharp and probing.
