All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,2
have a girlfriend now. Clem had been very specific about that. Where was the harm in a little flirting with a woman who was clearly keen to go there, too?
“So,” she said, her hand eventually sliding from his, “what’s a hottie like you doing drinking in a hotel bar all alone on a Sunday night?”
Reuben barked out a laugh. “I could ask the same of you.”
She shrugged. “I travel a lot. This is a pretty standard Sunday night for me. The hotel thing,” she clarified, “not the flirting thing.”
He appreciated the clarification but didn’t need it. What Vivian got up to, and when and where and with whom, was entirely her own business. He was just exceedingly fucking glad she’d picked him to flirt with on this night.
“So…why all alone?” she asked. “Tough day? You look like you’ve had a tough day.”
“I do?” Reuben finger-combed his hair, absently rubbing his short locks.
Her gaze drifted over his hair. “Yeah.”
Dropping his hand, Reuben said, “Just a busy weekend at work.” He didn’t want to elaborate on his job. Some women got kinda freaky about it. “And…my girlfriend dumped me a couple of days ago as well.”
Reuben blinked. Being a cop was off the table but splitting with Clementine was up for discussion? What the fuck, dude?
Maybe there was something in that whole, easier to talk to strangers thing.
Vivian, who’d lifted the glass to take another drink paused with her lips a whisker from the rim. “Is she blind?” she asked, smiling a little as she touched her mouth to the rim and drank.
He laughed. “You’re good for my ego.”
Someone patted him on the back as they walked by and said, “Howdy, Reuben,” mid stride to the booths on the opposite wall.
“Hey, Wallace,” Reuben returned recognizing the guy from the Bozeman auto shop before turning back to Vivian who was still sipping on her beer.
“Was it unexpected?” She placed the glass down. “The split?”
“Yeah. Well…no. I mean…” It hadn’t been expected but Reuben hadn’t been surprised either, which spoke volumes. He certainly wasn’t angry or upset. Just a little…miffed. But he couldn’t work out if that was because he was going to miss Clem whom he loved and respected and gave him something to do on his nights off or the inevitable motherly flak he was about to face. “We weren’t really heavily serious I guess.”
“And she wanted more?”
No, it hadn’t been that. “She said we both deserved more.” Reuben sat a little straighter as something suddenly occurred to him. “Do you think…she found someone else?”
She shrugged. “You know her. You tell me.”
Reuben thought for about two seconds then dismissed the thought. “Nah. She wouldn’t do that. And if there’d been somebody else, she’d have just come out and said it.” He took a couple of swallows of his beer. “Sorry.” He put his almost-empty glass down. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. You probably don’t get random guys in bars unloading their latest breakup woes on you.”
“True.” She grinned. “Mostly they try and hit on me.”
Reuben grimaced. “Sorry.”
“About men hitting on me, or about you not hitting on me?”
“Um.” Reuben felt a little like Arnie Schwarzenegger in the first Terminator movie scrolling through choices inside his cyborg brain for the most appropriate response. He’d been out of the game too long, obviously. “Both?”
She laughed then and the husky vibrato was as lush and decadent as the woman. “Your pickup skills could really do with some work.”
Reuben’s breath stuttered to a halt. “Is…that what I’m doing here?” Is that what she wanted him to do?
A small smile played on those red lips. How was it possible that she’d consumed three-quarters of her beer and the red sheen on her mouth seemed untouched? He wondered just what amount of wear that lipstick could take.
“I sincerely hope so.”
Reuben watched as she drained the remainder of her drink, his gaze zeroing in on the long milky stretch of her throat as it undulated. He wasn’t going to lie, it turned him on a little. Until a woman from his mom’s quilting group approached from his left. That was like two bricks to his nuts.
“Hey, Reuben. If you see your mom before I do, could you tell her I picked up that fabric already?”
Taking a deep breath, he dragged his eyes off Vivian’s throat. “Hey, Mrs. Phillips. Sure, I’ll pass that on.”
“Thank you,” the older woman said giving Vivian a curious up-and-down look before departing again.