Crazy for Loving You A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy - Pippa Grant Page 0,34
my off-limits list for the most solid reason anyone ever goes on that list.
“You’re evil,” Alessandro murmurs to me.
“Just because I’m the byproduct of a messy divorce and have no use for commitment doesn’t mean I believe other people shouldn’t have love.”
“I don’t think what they have is love.”
I sigh, because he’s right, and now I’m going to go back to not having a solid excuse for telling myself West isn’t hot as fuck.
He and Becca are doing a funky dance around the table, each one trying not to touch the other, or even look the other in the eye, as they pick seats at the window table shaped like a fish.
A grouper, specifically.
I asked Pixie, the owner, about which fish they were once, and I can totally see the resemblance now. Plus, it’s a boxier fish, which works well for a table. So long as you don’t bump your knee or elbow on the fins.
West ends up under the tail, with Becca on top of the tail, which leaves me with the head. Alessandro parks the stroller across from me and next to Becca, then surreptitiously slips into the vacant two-person table behind Becca where he can see the whole restaurant.
“Hush puppies?” I ask my companions. “Pixie makes the best hush puppies in the universe, and then she serves them with strawberry butter, which is basically like having an orgasm in your mouth.”
Becca goes red.
West sighs. “Yeah. Hush puppies.”
“They’re out,” Chipper Bergman says forlornly from the seat beside Alessandro. “I really wanted hush puppies, but they’re out.”
A perky teenager with braces bounces to our table with a bright grin. Her parents own a luxury condo across the golf course, and she works here all summer for a place to escape.
“Good news,” she announces. “We found the batter. We’re back in business. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Fish Tails! I’m Laney, and I’ll be your server today. Hush puppies all around? And for you too, Mr. Bergman. I got you covered. You all need menus, or did Daisy already tell you what’s best? You should listen to her. She never picks wrong.”
“Flattering, but also true. I recommend the seafood bucket for you, Becca. And West, definitely try the coconut-crusted swordfish with the mango salsa. Life-changing.”
He snaps his gaze from roaming around the room and when it lands on me, his eyes narrow dangerously thin. Yes, yes, his life has already changed once in the past two days, but the more important part is, Becca should totally be salivating over him with narrowed eyes, because protective grumpy dudes with muscles are almost as sexy as dudes with babies, and West is a protective grumpy dude with muscles AND a baby.
But Becca isn’t watching him. She’s leaning over to peek at Remy.
I ignore my own disappointment and West’s glare, and I ask for a mahi-mahi sandwich for myself, plus a pitcher of Pixie’s famous mango sweet tea.
Neither West nor Becca object to my orders for them, so Laney bounces off after promising Chipper one last time that no, she’s not kidding, there is more hush puppy batter in the kitchen.
“Of course there is,” Becca says with a half-laugh, her gaze darting to West’s chin.
I kick back in my chair with the front two legs off the ground. “So how do you two crazy kids know each other?”
“We went to high school together,” Becca tells my left ear.
“In Chicago?”
Her brows furrow, and she finally makes eye contact. “You…really know a lot about West.”
I wink at her. “Occupational hazard of getting in bed with someone.”
West chokes on air.
“Figuratively speaking,” I finish. “When you’re born in the world I’m born in, you have to find out things about people. Sorry. Kind of. Also, I’m having complicated feelings about co-inheriting a baby with a guy whose brother plays for the Thrusters. Am I going to get in trouble if I admit I seriously hate them because they beat my home team so bad in the hockey playoffs that I woke up bruised the next day? Rude. How is Tyler, by the way? I could see myself liking him a lot if he got himself traded down here. He should do that.”
Becca’s still staring at me wide-eyed, and I realize she’s not at all impressed by West’s professional hockey-playing brother, but is still very impressed with me.
Maybe because I can spit out a lot of words without taking a breath.
“He’s amused,” West tells me.
“Oh, at the whole baby thing? That is funny. My cousin was a riot.”