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“Oooh, did you use the props?” Bree leaned in and for a moment she thought Craig eyed her cleavage. She instantly sat up straight again.
Craig laughed and said, “Yeah. Those fake spiders and lizards were a hit.”
“Good.”
A moment of silence passed, and Bree wondered if Craig waited to ask her something. He shifted on the desks and cleared his throat.
“So, I wanted to ask you something.” He held up his palm and waved. “And it’s perfectly fine to say no….”
Bree’s heart almost beat out of her chest. Craig loved to joke with Bree ever since he first started working with her two years ago. He flirted, she laughed it off.
But one night, about three months ago when she was still heartbroken about Declan, he gave her a brief kiss after a faculty softball game. She’d regretted the moment Craig’s lips had touched hers, and she instantly had backed away. Craig hadn’t flirted with her since.
She let her eyes take her fill of his muscular arms, his broad chest and finally, his tanned, smiling face. In front of Bree sat a total opposite of Declan. Maybe she had been stupid to dismiss him so easily after that kiss.
Craig is blonde where Declan has black hair.
Craig is bulky. And although Declan’s twin Ronan is bulky, Declan is more lean and muscular.
But most of all, Craig was interested in her, and Declan was not.
“I’ll go out with you,” she blurted.
He laughed and said, “I wanted to ask you if I could borrow your pattern snakes to work on with Liv tomorrow. But hey, if a date’s on the table, I’ll take it.”
She smiled at his joke. “Right.”
“I really wasn’t going to ask you out on a date.” Craig placed a hand on the back of his neck and gave her a pained expression.
“Why not?” Bree placed a hand in front of her mouth, as she couldn’t believe how snotty she sounded.
Craig laughed and said, “That night we sort of kissed in Lucky… I ehm, I got the feeling you wasn’t really into it?” His cheeks colored red.
“Oh.” What was she to say? He nailed it right on the head. She wasn’t into him at the time. But maybe she could be now? Things could grow, right?
He shifted on the desks. “Look, I then asked Kate about your friend.”
“My friend?” Bree scrunched her nose.
“Yeah, that cop who hates my guts.”
Bree giggled but hastily cleared her throat when Craig didn’t laugh along with her.
“Sorry. He doesn’t hate you. You two don’t even know each other.”
“Well, I’ve seen him a few times in that Irish pub and he’s always watching you and giving me the stink eye. I wanted to check with Kate that I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes. She’d said it was a long story, so that wasn’t really encouraging.”
“I’m sorry, Craig. I guess in retrospect, my heart was indeed with Declan.”
Why did she have to tell him that? He must find her so attractive as she pined over some other guy. Geez. She had no idea how to play the dating game. Bree had reluctantly dated some guys in college. It was right after Declan asked his ex, Susanna, to be his girlfriend.
A petite blonde with no spunk, Susanna had been the total opposite of Bree. Whenever Bree talked to Declan on the phone while away at college, she zoned out the stories about Susanna. When he’d broken things off with the blonde after six months, Bree hoped things would turn around and he would finally see her differently.
She came home for the summer to find Declan dating a doppelganger of Bree. That hurt even more. Because then she’d asked herself if he wanted someone like Bree, he could have picked her. So what was wrong with her? Why didn’t he wanther?
Bree got back from college and worked at St. Helena’s Kindergarten. Declan didn’t have a girlfriend in the past few years, and they grew even closer as friends. Bree had fought a long internal battle before she finally confessed her love for him last March.
“And is your heart still with him?”
