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Because she was a realist, you know? Sure, she’d had a crush on Devin since she’d realized that not all boys were slimy and gross (her brother Han definitely excluded). But she’d never expected anything to ever come of it.
To him, she was the bratty kid who used to follow her brother and his friends around all the time. Skinned knees and messy ponytails and oversize hand-me-down T-shirts did not bring any boys to the yard, and she’d made her peace with that.
Right until her high school graduation, four and a half long years ago.
Her mom had made such a big deal of it. Her last kid graduating from high school had combined with menopause in some pretty unpredictable ways. Finally, the nagging about wanting a good picture had gotten to be too much. Fed up with it all, Zoe had gotten her sister Lian to help her figure out how to do her hair and her makeup, and she’d actually worn a dress for once. It’d been a big hassle, but she’d had to admit that she felt and looked great.
At the party after, while Han and Devin and a few of their friends were tossing a football around in the backyard, she’d gone up to them to let them know the pizza was there.
She could see it all in her head so clearly. Devin had looked up. His eyes had gone wide.
Only to have a football smack him right in the head.
He’d never looked at her the same after that. Every time his gaze landed on her, it would darken. His Adam’s apple would bob, and that scruffy jaw would tense, his rough, hardworking hands clenching into fists at his sides.
Exactly the way he’d been looking at her about two seconds ago.
An angry flush warmed her cheeks as he jerked his gaze away—probably checking to make sure her overprotective big brother, Han, wasn’t going to materialize out of nowhere and throw another football at his head.
It was infuriating.
When he didn’t have any interest in her, she could totally handle it. But now? This weird, intense game of sexual-attraction chicken he was playing?
What a bunch of bull.
The last time they’d run into each other at the drugstore, he’d done the same thing, heat building in his gaze right until the moment she’d stared back at him. She’d played it cool, hoping he’d say something. Instead, he’d grabbed the first thing he saw off the shelf and darted toward the checkout. Either the guy was super eager to get home with his novelty sunglasses or he was avoiding her.
After months of being back home spinning her wheels on her doomed job search, she was tired of spinning her wheels on whatever was going on between the two of them, too. She wasn’t expecting him to drop down on one knee and ask her to marry him or anything. But she was into him, and it sure seemed like he was into her. While she was here, couldn’t they, like,dosomething about it?
Enough playing it cool. Clearly she was going to have to be the one to make the first move.
Abandoning subtlety for once, she sauntered over to him. She put a little swing in her hips, just for fun. She’d come out of her shell a lot during the four years she’d been away. She could still rock a messy ponytail and an oversize T-shirt, but the snug top and short skirt she was wearing in preparation for her shift at the Junebug tonight were just as comfortable—and she knew how to use them.
“How’s it going?” she asked, coming to a stop a foot away. Too close, for sure. The air hummed. He was tantalizingly warm, pushing heat into the tight space between them and making her skin prickle with awareness.
Licking her lips, she gazed up at him. She was all but batting her lashes here.
The darkness in his eyes returned as he stared down at her.
He had always been good-looking. Back in the day, it had been in a loping, gangly teenage way. His spots on the baseball and football teams had put some muscle on him, but whatever he’d been up to at his construction job had done even more. Under his jacket and tee, he rippled with muscle. His jaw had gone from soft to chiseled, and he kept his golden-brown hair shorter, too.
“Uh.” He swallowed. “Good. Great, actually.”
“Yeah?”
He still hadn’t backed away. That was a good sign, right?
“Yeah.” He nodded almost imperceptibly.
Something turned over, low in the pit of her belly. He smelled so good, like man and hard work and wood shavings.
She wanted to ask him what was going on that was so great. She wanted to sway forward into him, tip her head up or put her hand on his broad chest and find out if it was as hard and hot as it looked.
He swallowed and shifted his weight, edging ever so slightly closer to her. Her heart thudded hard. Maybe he wanted her to do all those things, too. Maybe…
“Devin? What are you doing here?”
Crap.
