AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She spoke again, setting both cups on the ledge. “I did. In fact, after I finish up here, I’m off for the rest of the day. What time is your lunch break?”
I grabbed my wallet from my back pocket. “Usually noon. I was going to ask you to lunch, but you might not want to wait that long.”
There. She had the perfect “out” if she wanted it. I held my breath but tried to appear disinterested as she looked up, thinking for a moment. I was once again struck by how beautiful she was.
This wasn’t the maybe-drugged muffin. It was me pulling my head out of my ass. For the first time, I was seeing her not as a pair of tits but as a woman I’d like to get to know better.
As that thought hit me, I waited for the usual guilt to pop up. I’d assumed the next time I was attracted to a woman—reallyattracted—it would feel like a betrayal to Angela. Instead, relief washed over me. Maybe I wasn’t destined to spend the rest of my life completely alone.
“I’ll take this truck back and get my car and come back up here,” she said. “I can even grab us some of Bart’s chicken and fried potatoes.”
Bart ran the convenience store that was the town’s only gas station. It carried a couple of breakfast items, including some crullers made by a woman named Edna. At lunchtime, he stepped it up a notch, offering pizza and chicken that he continued to make until dinnertime.
That place had fed me more nights than I cared to admit. Sandwiches for lunch and frozen dinners got old after a while.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I’m Tucker, by the way.”
I held out a hand for a handshake. It felt like the one step we’d missed—introducing ourselves. But as my much larger hand engulfed hers, I felt it again. A spark that seemed to run through my entire body. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that with Angela. And that was when the guilt set in.
But the barista’s smile wiped away that feeling. It was replaced by a warmth that spread through my entire body, replacing the sparks.
“I’m Hannah,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Our eyes connected again as we shook once, then split. I missed her touch already.
Sheesh…this could be dangerous. I’d never done a casual relationship before, so if that was what she was expecting, she was barking up the wrong tree.
I could already tell this woman would be impossible to forget.
3
HANNAH
Ihad a…date?
I wasn’t sure what to call it. Maybe to Tucker, it was just a casual lunch. To me, it was sharing a meal with a guy who made my toes tingle. Other parts of my body too.
But I frowned as I pulled into the lot. Only one vehicle remained parked there. Had they all moved to another job site?
A quick scan of the area, though, and I saw Tucker sitting on that same tree stump where he’d eaten the sweetheart muffin that morning. He was staring down at his phone. I smiled to myself as I cut the engine and grabbed the big bag of food I’d picked up at the market. The date was on.
“Did they desert you?” I asked as I reached the midway point between the parking lot and where he sat.
His head jerked up. Whatever he’d been absorbed in obviously was engrossing if he hadn’t even noticed my car pull in.
“They all went fishing,” he said. “They do that sometimes—take their lunches to the lake. I told them I’d just hang back here.”
He stood and was now approaching me. He held a hand out, and I started to tell him I could carry it, but then I remembered what a friend in college had told me. Guys liked to feel needed. They liked to carry things and kill bugs and…stuff.
“Thank you,” I said as he took it, his fingers once again brushing mine.
As I battled the warmth that flooded me again, I tried to tell whether taking the bag made him feel needed or not. His face was completely neutral. This guy was a hard one to read.
“Not into fishing?” I asked.
Tucker looked over at me. “Why would you assume that?”
He sounded a little defensive, but I realized my question made little sense. Tucker had stayed back to have lunch with me, not because he wasn’t interested in fishing with the guys.
