mean he’d liked Tami chattering to Clementine.
He disliked that bearded man eyeing her even more.
The stranger had texted on his phone while occasionally watching her, innocent by all accounts. But Jack kept picturing him walking over, buying her a drink, taking her home. Jack was up and out of his seat before Marco could ask where he was heading. To Clementine. To a woman who wasn’t his but shouldn’t be anyone else’s.
Now she wanted him to share more than reptile facts and polite conversation. An urge tugged below his skin, to tell her about David Industries and his father’s cancer, details he hadn’t even shared with Marco. The pull was confusing and hard to fight.
“I stuttered as a child,” he told her. Not the thing he wanted to say. The safe thing, though still difficult. “It got worse in my teens, made those years hard for me—which I’m guessing Tami told you about.”
Clementine had the decency to look guilty. “She might have mentioned something.”
“I can always count on her.”
“You don’t stutter now.”
“Speech therapy helped, but ultimately, singing cured me. Focusing on the notes and rhythms loosened something in my brain. I’ve never seen my father so proud as the day I sang an Elvis song start to finish, not a stutter in sight.” Don’t ever stop singing, son, he’d said. Hearing your voice brings me joy. Jack hoped it would bring him that and more at this year’s festival, as long as he completed his research.
Clementine angled more fully toward him. “Tell me another.”
Her eyes kept flitting to his thumb, making him aware of his absentminded movements. She made him aware of the speed of his breaths—deeper and faster since sitting beside her. He’d become attuned to the chafing of his jeans along his thighs, the pressure of his laced boots. With her, all his senses heightened.
His thumb slid up and down his beer, drawing a slow circle, moving the condensation around. Was that a whimper from dear Clementine?
He smiled to himself. “I’ll give you another secret if you give me one of yours.”
The tiniest flinch darkened her face. “Who says I have secrets?”
A shaky question from a woman who’d lied about her name. “Here I was, just starting to like you, and you go being annoying again.”
She glanced around dramatically. “Who, me?”
“No. The other mysterious woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a bearded dragon named Lucy.”
“Does this kind of flattery get you far with the ladies?”
“If you listened to Tami, you’d know the answer to that.”
A covert smile tilted her lips. “Want a tip?”
“I’m all ears.” He was curious where Clementine was going with that sultry look of hers, the intimate drop in her tone.
She leaned in close, her warm breath ghosting against his lips. “From one idiot to another: when a girl avoids a question, calling her annoying won’t help your cause.”
He nodded sagely. “Who said I had a cause?”
She shrugged a shoulder, nursed a slow sip of her beer.
He mirrored her pose, facing the bar. Their thighs brushed slightly, and he continued dragging his thumb up and down his bottle. She passed her beer back and forth between her hands, leaving a wet streak on the bar. They snuck a look at each other at the same moment. He raised an eyebrow.
She rolled her eyes, then sighed. “I’m the reason my mother died of an overdose.”
It was his turn to flinch. She’d offered her startling truth pragmatically, no more emotion than if she’d said I don’t step on sidewalk cracks or I’ve never eaten an oyster.
“How was it your fault?”
“My father died the year before,” she said, still matter-of-fact. Emotionless. “My mother worked two jobs, barely keeping up with bills. We’d moved to an apartment and our rent was behind. I was ten and fending for myself.”
“Did you have siblings?”
She shook her head. “An only child, and not a very smart one. All the idiot awards belong to me.”
“I find that impossible to believe.” He wanted to fold her in his arms, let his warmth dull the bite of her painful memories.
A sad smile cracked her stoic fa?ade. “I fucked up heating pasta sauce, so, yeah—idiot of the century. I forgot that I put the pot on the stove to reheat. Got busy reading one of my father’s old car magazines. I pored over them like him, desperate to learn everything I could about classic cars, learn what he knew. It wasn’t until smoke filled my room and the fire alarm blared that I remembered. Then our landlady