and a beer, I said, to my own kid! And just now, when she saw me behind the bar, that same blush twisted my gut. I wonder how her skin will prickle and flush when I go in search of the answer to a question I’ve been pondering for weeks, is she a natural redhead?
“Fuck,” I snap at myself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. These are just thoughts, Raff!”
Throwing a childlike fit of my own, I curse myself for feeling more than my normal one-night stand attraction. I lean forward, my elbows on the desk, my face resting in my hands, and look at her, my Hope.
“Looks at me a lot like you did, and it pisses me right off.”
Turning the photo around, I focus on my task—nothing like financial reports to take the edge off.
What feels like moments later, I take a quick glance at the clock and notice it’s past seven p.m.
“Shit,” I say, pushing back in my desk chair and making my way out to the bar.
When I round the corner, I see Nathaniel and his aunt Faith sitting at the bar, teacups in front of them, next to… Red and her sidekick, Jenny, whom I have known since I moved into town. I want to run over there, turn over a table or two to get to Nathaniel and Faith, and ask them what they think they’re doing, talking to the woman I feel somehow magnetized to.
But I catch Nathaniel laughing. I slow down before stopping, taking a breath, and calming down. Red empties her bag in front of him, Winterfield’s Sweet Spot candy spilling all over the top of the bar.
He grins, and she scrunches her nose and shrugs. I see her mouth the word, sorry, and ruffling his hair. He smiles, nodding, and holds out his hand in an offer to shake hers.
Instead of the cordial handshake, a sign of an apology accepted, she pulls him into a warm hug.
His eyes bulge and look as if they may fall out of his head as I walk toward them, worried he might… I don’t have a fucking clue why it bothers me, but it does. As I near, his shocked expression turns into a grin, and he awkwardly puts one arm around her and pats her back.
Once I’m in front of them, the bar between us, I jump into their conversation. “Everything all right, Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel nods and then eyeballs the pile of Winterfield’s famous homemade taffy, in dozens of colors, spilled out before him and then looks back up at me, seeking permission to break the no sweets after six p.m. rule. A rule in place because he’ll be bouncing off the walls of our home until midnight if not followed.
“One,” I concede.
She looks up at me, then back at Nathaniel, and smiles. “But take the rest for later.”
He looks back up at me, and I nod.
“Thank you, Miss Nikki.”
She giggles. “Nikki is fine!”
Her name is Nikki. Nicole, maybe? No. She looks like a Nikki. I like it.
I pry my eyes off of her face, and my hand tingles with a need to touch her.
I watch as a red-faced Nikki slides from her stool, steadying herself before attempting to walk a straight line to the ladies’ room. At least she’s a sweet drunk. Nothing worse than a woman with an acidic tongue. I glance at Jenny as she stands up, does the same steady, ready, and attempts to walk straight. I shouldn’t have assumed one was any better off than the other, yet I had.
Faith clears her throat, and my attention gets brought back to where it should be, to my son and my wife’s sister.
She raises her eyebrows, and I narrow my eyes in response, knowing damn well what she’s thinking. She knows damn well I don’t particularly care for her attempt to hook me up with nearly every woman wearing a skirt when we’re in the same proximity.
“Nate, why don’t you run back to your dad’s office and grab a bag for your loot,” she says. “I think it’s too much for your pockets to hold.”
He slides off his stool, grinning, and heads toward my office, saying, “Be back in just a minute,” over his shoulder.
“Don’t,” I warn her before she even has the chance to suggest I ask the woman on a date.
“She’s—
I cut her off, “She’s not my type.”
She laughs. “She’s exactly your type. She’s so much your type that it grates on your last nerve. She even looks—”
“As I’ve told you every